


A Day in the Life

by CharlieTheUnicorn



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Anal Sex, Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff, Gun Violence, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Smut, Turk Fic, Violence, will update tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:01:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieTheUnicorn/pseuds/CharlieTheUnicorn
Summary: A collection of Veld+Vincent one-shots and drabbles, set during their Turk days. Some chapters will be pretty tame; others are likely to get explicit. I'll put an individual warning on any of the chapters that are NSFW, but assume that language, sexually suggestive themes, and varying degrees of violence will be present throughout.
Relationships: Vincent Valentine/Veld
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	1. Sunny Days and Hand Grenades

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Only If For A Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24838336) by [CharlieTheUnicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieTheUnicorn/pseuds/CharlieTheUnicorn). 



> Vincent gets an injury in an inconvenient location. Veld tries to ignore his feelings while patching his partner up.

Vincent and Veld had, as usual, gotten lucky, but not quite lucky enough. They had gotten lucky that the shrapnel from the pipe bomb that had gone off nearby had missed them entirely and taken out the syndicate men who were pursuing them. They were not, however, quite lucky enough to walk away unscathed; the blast knocked Vincent back against Veld…directly into the short push blade Veld wore on his knuckles. They toppled together to the ground, both of them cursing—Veld in panic and Vincent in pain.

Veld forced himself to sit up so he could survey the damage, ignoring the dizziness caused by the ringing in his ears. Vincent was pressing his hand hard to a wound just below his hipbone, wincing as he tried and failed to stop the blood flow.

“Fuck,” Veld hissed hoarsely, his voice sounding strange and distant in his ears. “Vincent, I—”

“You can apologize later, Veld…at least you’ll be able to as long as you help me get this _bleeding stopped_ ,” Vincent chimed sternly through clenched teeth.

“Shit. Yeah.” Veld unbuttoned the top few buttons of Vincent’s pants, tugging them down far enough to see the wound—a gash about two inches long and two inches deep on the right side of his pelvis, just a bit below his hipbone. Almost anywhere else, the wound would have been nothing to worry about, but there were too many blood vessels there in the delicate, vulnerable skin around his groin. “This definitely needs stitches, but it’s bleeding too much right now. We have to get that stopped.”

Vincent made a noise in his throat at that—a small, undignified snort of derision. Veld clearly heard the “I told you so” communicated by the noise, but Vincent seemed to forget his scorn when Veld slipped his shirt over his head, wadding it up so he could use it to staunch the blood flow. Vincent let out a grimace of pain when Veld put pressure against the wound. Six months ago, Vincent wouldn’t have let him see it, but he’d finally stopped being wary of him, stopped treating him like an aggressive dog that might bite if he showed it weakness. Blood kept seeping from the wound, and Veld swore again—let out a string of them this time, in Wutain.

“Look, I’m sorry. This is probably really going to hurt, but I have to get more pressure on that, okay?” Veld warned before shifting so he could place his body weight on the wound. He slung one leg over Vincent’s body, straddling his frame and placing his weight against the cut. Finally, the blood stopped seeping out.

“You okay?” inquired Veld. Vincent verified with a nod. “Am I putting too much weight on you?” A shake of the head. “Are you dizzy?”

“A bit,” Vincent admitted.

“Okay, okay. We’ll stay here just another minute until the bleeding slows down, and I’ll get us a room at the inn a few streets over and get you patched up. That blast took out all of the syndicate men, and it’ll be a minute before any of the townsfolk get the balls to come poking around. I’m so—”

“Veld, if you apologize again I will kill you as soon as I finish bleeding out from my crotch.” Veld breathed in to apologize for apologizing and let if out in a sputter. Vincent looked up at Veld and laughed softly before turning his face away.

“What the fuck could possibly be _funny_ to you right now, Valentine?” Veld demanded, shaking his head in awe. They’d been partners for a year now, and Vincent still baffled him.

“This isn’t how I imagined you ending up on top of me,” he admitted, somewhere between teasing and tentative.

Veld laughed at that before he truly had time to process it, though he was sure he went as pale as…well… as _Vincent_ , when the words finally sank in. He winced at the way his voice came out when he spoke next, husky and breathless, the desperation of his want laid suddenly bare.

“Wait. You’ve imagined me _on top of you_?”

He was possibly even more flabbergasted when Vincent actually _blushed_ , splotches of heat painting pink across high cheekbones. Well, that was new, Shinra’s shiny new pet killer blushing like a schoolgirl, and damn, but why was he so pretty when he did it? Veld turned his focus back to the wound, trying to fight down his sudden hyper-awareness of their position, the growing tightness of his slacks around his swelling erection.

This wasn’t happening, Veld told himself. He was dreaming this. It wouldn’t have been the first time. And tomorrow he’d wake up with a dampness in his underwear and struggle to make eye contact with his partner without flushing in shame.

“I think it’s slowing down.”

Vincent’s voice broke Veld from his thoughts, and he checked to see that Vincent was right before dismounting his partner.

“Okay,” he confirmed, placing Vincent’s hand over the wad of cloth pressed to his wound. “Put pressure on that. It’s going to start bleeding again when I get you up, so hold it tight, okay?”

Vincent gave a small, resolute nod, and Veld helped him to his feet with a grunt. Vincent winced again, and sure enough, blood began to seep out of the cut once more. Veld took his belt off and brushed Vincent’s hand aside so he could tighten it around the cloth.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Vincent hissed as Veld tugged the belt as taut as it would go, and Veld winced at the swear. Vincent didn’t curse as a general rule, not in passing at least, not like him. Veld almost apologized again, but settled for pulling Vincent’s arm around his shoulder and taking weight off his injured side.

The quarter mile or so to the nearest inn felt like an eternity, Vincent hobbling at his side, his blood seeping onto Veld now despite the cloth bound tightly around him. Veld burst into the kitchen through the worker’s entrance, gun in his free hand. Automatically, he took in their situation; two girls, waitresses, probably, screamed as they entered, jumping back in fright. The cook—a big man—jumped, but clutched his knife tighter. A man he assumed to be the owner of the inn made a break for the door. Veld aimed his gun at him.

“Stop!” he commanded, sternly but not particularly loud. They didn’t need any customers who might be here getting involved in this. The man froze immediately, putting his hands up, and Veld exchanged his gun for his ID badge. “We’re Shinra. My partner’s hurt, and you’re going to put us up and give us everything we need until I say otherwise. And you’re not going to say a word about it to anyone. Got it?”

The innkeeper nodded desperately, and the cook set down his knife. Everyone knew better than to cross Shinra.

“There a servant’s staircase we can use?” Veld demanded more than asked, and one of the girls scampered across the room to open the door for them, eager to usher these men and everything they represented out of their kitchen as quickly as she could.

“You need help getting him upstairs?” the cook offered, but the glare Vincent shot him made him take a minute step backwards. Veld might have chuckled, were he not so worried about how much blood Vincent had lost. His partner _hated_ it when people touched him, not that touch-shy, kicked-dog flinching he’d seen too many times in broken people, but the sort of indignant irritation that likely came from growing up pretty enough to be treated like a doll. Part of him almost wished Vincent would take the guy up on the offer, though; his partner was getting heavy. The girl who had opened the door took a key from the wall and unlocked an upstairs bedroom for them.

“I’ll need some needle and thread. Alcohol too. Bandages if you’ve got them, clean linens if you don’t. You got that?” he asked. She nodded. “Sorry in advance about the sheets, by the way,” he muttered as he pushed past her to help Vincent lie down on the bed.

He took the belt off, but kept the shirt pressed against the wound. The starched white cotton was nearly soaked through, but the bleeding was slowing again now that he was still. Vincent’s hair was falling into his eyes— _Always_ , Veld thought with amusement and…fondness? _It's always falling into his eyes_ —and he reached out to brush it away from his face, forgetting momentarily about the blood on his hands.

“Shit, sorry,” Veld murmured as he wiped a bit of the man’s own blood across his forehead.

“It’s all right, Veld,” Vincent said tiredly. “It’s not like getting a bit more blood on me makes a difference at this point.”

“I know you don’t like people touching you,” Veld explained, eyes flickering away from him. He was surprised when Vincent reached out, thumb brushing across the back of his hand.

“I don’t like _people_ touching me,” Vincent confirmed in a whisper. “I don’t mind when it’s _you_.”

Veld twined his fingers through Vincent’s cautiously, leaning down a little. Oh, so he hadn’t woken up from this dream after all. Any doubt of that disappeared when Vincent tugged him downwards, catching Veld’s lips with his own. Vincent’s mouth was soft and warm, and though the kiss had started tentative, soon it was as if a damn had burst, all of the shared adrenaline and anxiety from the fight, about Vincent’s injury, finding an outlet through that kiss.

It made more sense to Veld, when he realized why Vincent was doing this, when he realized how close to the edge they’d both come today. This was desperation, then, a heat of the moment reaction. He shouldn’t read into it, but it felt damned good, and he realized that this could quickly become habit. That was also around the time he realized that this _wasn’t_ a dream…and also around the time the bar-girl walked back in with the supplies he’d asked for. She was flushing scarlet when Veld finally noticed her and drew away. He cleared his throat in embarrassment, feeling heat creep into his own cheeks.

“You can um, just leave that there,” he forced out, rising and fetching the supplies after she had left, closing the door behind her this time. Veld locked it before returning to Vincent’s side.

“Are you _embarrassed_ , Veld?” Vincent asked with mild amusement as Veld knelt beside him and began tearing the clean linen sheets the girl had given him into strips for bandages. “I don’t think I’ve seen that one on you before.”

“This is going to hurt like a bitch,” Veld warned instead of replying, grabbing the bottle of cheap vodka she’d left for them and pouring it over a clean rag. Vincent hissed like an angry cat when he touched it to the wound, slowly clearing the blood away, careful not to break the razor-thin layer of scab that had started settling over it. “Dab at that if it bleeds more,” he instructed Vincent, passing the rag over so he could thread the needle.

He tried not to look at Vincent as he worked, tried not to notice the taut, slender muscles of his stomach when he moved his shirt further from the wound, tried not to linger on the delicate curve of his hipbone, tried not to follow the thin line of hair that trailed from his bellybutton downwards before disappearing into the waistband of his pants.

“No one at the company knows,” Veld told Vincent after he had finished stitching the cut closed.

“That you like men?” Vincent clarified. Wincing a little, Veld nodded.

“I’d prefer to keep it that way,” he continued pointedly.

“I can’t imagine why I might ever feel the need to talk about it with anyone,” Vincent assured.

Another brief pause, and Veld leaned down to catch his mouth once more. Vincent hummed into the kiss, barely audible, enjoying the taste of Veld: tobacco and black coffee. He smelled good, too, even after their mission, the earthy scent of the dirt coating him melding well with the masculine, gunpowder and cigar-smoke scent of Veld’s skin, the faint, lingering scent of his cologne.

“You’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he accused in a gentle taunt when Veld pulled away. He smiled when Veld’s eyes darted away from his at the words. “I thought I was reading your looks wrong, for a while,” Vincent admitted. “You never seemed… _interested_ in anyone else.”

“I don’t flirt at work, as a rule,” he explained. “I didn’t even mean to…linger over you like that, but…” He sighed. “Fuck, Vincent, don’t you understand how _devastating_ you are?” _Close your fucking mouth, Verdot_! the single sane voice amidst the clamor in his skull pleaded. _You sound like a fucking creep_. Vincent just blushed again, though.

“I think I scare people,” Vincent admitted. “I’m not used to it from people who know me.”

Veld didn’t reply to that. Vincent wasn’t wrong. He knew more than one of their colleagues who were unnerved by him. It wasn’t like there weren’t other members of the Turks who enjoyed killing. There were even other members of the Turks who went about that killing just as brutally as Vincent when he snapped. 

It was when a person tried to reconcile Vincent as he was ninety-nine percent of the time—quiet, bookish, sensitive, polite—with descriptions and images of what he was capable of when he lost himself to the monster within his skin…that was where the disconnect grew. And it was in that disconnect that so many of the other people found their fear. Veld didn’t know why it had never bothered him—perhaps he just knew more than most about not being what they seemed.

“You should try to get some rest,” Veld said after a moment. “We’ll be here until morning, at least. You lost way too much blood. Your body will bounce back better if you sleep.”

Vincent gave a small nod at that, and Veld suspected sleeping wouldn’t be difficult for him tonight. He looked tired, paler even than usual. Veld helped him get comfortable beneath the covers, swatting at him whenever he moved in a way that threatened to pull his stitches. As he settled in at the small desk pressed against the wall and began to clean his guns, he cursed himself for not demanding something to drink from the bar-girl before she disappeared. He was still too embarrassed to seek her out now.

“Hey, Veld?” Vincent murmured wearily from the bed, already sounding halfway to sleep. He hummed in reply. “It’s…okay with me if it happens again.”

He usually would have made some snarky retort about getting stabbed in the dick and almost bleeding out, but he couldn’t, couldn’t say anything for a moment over the lump that had formed abruptly in his throat at Vincent’s words.

“Yeah,” he managed finally, voice coming out a bit strained. He cleared his throat. “Me too.”


	2. When It Rains (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent and Veld spend a rainy afternoon together

Veld woke on the sofa from his customary Saturday nap to the familiar, spicy-sweet aroma of Vincent’s favorite incense. Despite the early hour, the apartment was dim, the mid-afternoon sunlight filtering through the warped window panes in his loft wan and gray. Distantly, thunder rumbled ominously. Outside the window of Veld’s apartment, the rain came down in sheets.

He sat up, blinking sleep from his eyes, and Vincent let out a low hum from the corner, reminding Veld that he was still here. He’d learned over their years together that Veld startled easily. The older Turk never let it show, not in a way anyone else would ever notice, but Vincent was good at reading people that way.

He turned towards Vincent, a warm smile forming on his lips as he found the man settled in his favorite armchair in the corner by the window, wearing nothing but a too-big t-shirt, pair of briefs, and knit socks that came up almost to his knees. He had a book clasped in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. Veld loved seeing his partner this way, completely at ease in a way he so rarely was, and in that moment, he regretted that he wasn’t met with this sight every time he woke up.

He got up and made himself a cup of coffee, smiling a little when he opened the fridge and noticed the bottle of creamer Vincent kept there.

“Hey, Vince?” he began at last as he settled back down on the sofa, grabbing the day’s paper off the coffee table. “Why do you bother keeping that shitty little flat of yours?”

Vincent closed his book, set his teacup down on its saucer in the floor beside him, before finally regarding Veld with that intense mahogany gaze of his.

“Veld,” he murmured after a moment, “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“I mean… why not? You’re here all the time anyway. And I _like_ that, you know? I don’t sleep as soundly on the nights you’re gone. I’m a hell of a lot grumpier waking up.”

“I find that possibility of that notion improbable, but frightening,” Vincent teased.

“Really, Valentine,” Veld said, exasperated.

“Aren’t you worried about how it might look?” Vincent asked seriously. “You’re up for promotion soon.”

“Plenty of us room with our partners. Long as it’s a two-bedroom, no one will bat an eye. Rent’s a son-of-a-bitch. We could afford a pretty nice place together. I honestly don’t know what the fuck you do with all your money, but even the handful of gil you pay for that cereal box you live in could get us into some newer construction.”

“The opera,” Vincent said after a beat, not meeting Veld’s eyes. “What I do with my money. I like the opera. Season tickets are expensive.”

Veld gaped at him dumbly for a moment before shaking his head. He raked his hair back into place as he lit a cigarette and chuckled helplessly.

“Sometimes I wonder how the fuck I fell in love with you,” he said with amusement.

“Uncultured swine,” Vincent teased.

“Classist pig,” Veld shot back, and Vincent just laughed, rising from his chair to join Veld on the sofa, settling down beside the older man and cuddling him close.

“I’d like that, Veld,” Vincent said softly after a while, when they’d both fallen silent again, tone serious. “Living with you. My lease is up at the end of the year. We could look around.”

Veld hummed his agreement, threading his fingers through his partner’s, and Vincent let out a contented little sigh.

“Rainy days are my favorite,” he whispered to Veld, letting out a hum of pleasure as the older Turk brushed a kiss across his neck. Veld’s face was brushed with weekend stubble, rough enough to tickle. It set his nerves on fire in a good way.

“They look good on you,” Veld whispered into Vincent’s skin, shifting the smaller man into his lap and hooking his fingers underneath Vincent’s shirt, pausing and gently tugging it over his head before he continued. “Something about the sunlight through the clouds. It’s pretty on your skin.”

“Mmm,” Vincent purred noncommittally, fingers loosening the knot that held Veld’s house robe closed before pushing the garment open. Vincent’s fingers were pale against the bronze of Veld’s skin, so fucking delicate, and it still made so little sense to Veld sometimes, how this man managed to be both an orchid and a tiger all at once.

Vincent knew just how to touch him to make Veld come unhinged, soft fingers tracing the hair on his chest, drawing patterns down his sides, lingering on his nipples. They trailed reverently along the shapes of his scars, the strong lines of his shoulders, the firm muscles of his stomach. Vincent was good at touching people in a way that made them feel beautiful. Vincent liked to take this slow, and Veld liked that about him. It helped remind him that this wasn’t some hookup in the bathroom of some dive, or in a darkened alley, that this was _real_. That neither of them was going anywhere, and that there was no reason to rush. For a long while, they lost themselves in each other’s lips, kisses of black coffee and chamomile, deep and lingering.

Veld lifted Vincent off of him easily, lowered him back against the arm of the couch, and Vincent titled his hips up obediently when Veld tugged at the waistband of his underwear. Vincent was already half-hard when Veld took him into his mouth, and the older Turk moaned desperately as he felt Vincent swell inside him, sudden enough to make him choke, though he fought the reflex back stubbornly. When he was satisfied that his partner’s cock was standing at full attention, Veld pulled away, reaching into the sofa table for a bottle of oil.

“Should we make this a little ritual?” Veld murmured with a smile as he rubbed oil across his fingertips. “When we live together? After my Saturday nap, I drink a cup of coffee and we fuck on the sofa? We could do brunch after, maybe.” Vincent’s chuckle turned into a moan as Veld pressed a finger to the tight rim of muscle around his entrance, teasing for just a moment before pressing inwards. Vincent pulled Veld’s boxers out of the way to palm his erection, leaning in to catch the other man in a kiss. He nibbled at Veld’s lip as Veld worked him open, licked into the older man’s mouth, reveled in the taste of him.

Vincent climbed back into Veld’s lap as the other man broke away from a moment to discard his boxers and slick himself up. Veld put his hands on Vincent’s hips, thumbs digging into the pressure points just inside the frame of his hipbones, _just_ hard enough to edge at pain, as he guided Vincent where he wanted him. They moaned in unison as Vincent settled onto his length, still for a moment as he adjusted, arms draped around Veld’s shoulders, foreheads pressed together. Then he rolled his hips, and Veld saw stars. They moved in unison, Veld’s hips rising to meet Vincent’s as the younger Turk rode him, the pace he set slow and rhythmic, Vincent’s hands tangled in Veld’s hair, Veld’s fingers roving the length of Vincent’s spine before coming back to rest on his hips—pretty hips, delicate like the rest of him—and once again Veld found himself wondering what the fuck he’d done to deserve Vincent Valentine.

When they finished, they showered off together, standing close together beneath the hot water until it went lukewarm.

“Our apartment better have a bathtub,” Vincent murmured as Veld towelled off. Veld chuckled a little at that, because his apartment technically _did_ have a bathtub, just one sized for large dogs or smallish children. The memory of Vincent trying to fit in it still lingered with him, came back on its own occasionally when Veld was getting in the shower. It left him laughing every time.

“One we can actually fit in?” he asked fondly.

“Mmm,” Vincent confirmed. “With jets. It’s been _years_ since I’ve had a decent bubblebath.”

Veld laughed at that too, but had to admit to himself that it sounded nice. He’d never fucked someone in a bathtub, either. That sounded nice too.

“It’ll be fun explaining to everyone at the office why we both smell like bubblegum,” Veld ribbed.

“They make bubblebath for adults, Veld,” Vincent replied with an internal eye roll. Veld laughed again, passed Vincent a towel. “Might have to cut back on your opera habit if you want a place nice enough to have a jet tub.”

“Fine,” Vincent agreed with a shrug. “But you’re going to a show with me. At least one. Tease me all you like, but you’ll enjoy it. Now, I believe something was said earlier about brunch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humbly begging forgiveness for everyone currently dying on a cliffhanger in my longer fic. I currently feel like that friend who won't respond to your DMs but keeps sharing memes on Facebook lol. I promise I am so incredibly close to being finished, but I hope you'll accept this product of my writer's block as a token of my sincerest apologies for the wait.


	3. It Will Come Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent adopts a stray cat

Vincent was feeding that gods-damned stray again. It had started making its residence at Veld’s apartment around the same time Valentine had, lingering on the balcony. Thing had been totally feral a couple of months ago, when Vincent had first spotted it and set out a can of tuna. It followed Veld’s pretty Turk around like a dog now, circled around his legs and purred like a good V8, rubbing orange fur onto his slacks.

“You should really just bring that damned thing inside,” Veld relented as Vincent slipped in from the balcony, pale cheeks chapped with the cold.

“He likes it outside,” Vincent protested, taking the cup of hot cocoa Veld pressed into his numbed hands.

“Yeah, well, little shit probably should have thought of that before it decided to buddy up with you. I don’t want to deal with your moping when it runs away.”

Vincent just shrugged at that, sinking down into the sofa cushions with that careless grace of his.

“So you want me to keep him captive?” Vincent shook his head. “I should have known you’re too much of an oaf to understand cats.”

“Never made it a secret that I’m a dog person,” Veld shrugged, coming to sit down beside him.

“Of course you are,” Vincent observed. “Dogs are uncomplicated. Loyal to a fault. They do what you tell them, regardless of whether or not they actually love you, because that’s what they are. Trust only needs to go one way. Dogs are easy. With cats, trust is earned.”

Veld just laughed at that, helplessly, because leave it to Valentine to wax philosophical about his fucking choice of pet.

“This has to do with you bringing that mangy orange cretin inside how?” he asked when he was done.

“It would be a breach of trust,” Vincent explained, as if speaking to a particularly recalcitrant child. “It’s unfair to ask a wild creature to live in a cage in exchange for security. It goes against everything they are.”

That one gave Veld a bit of pause, understanding in that moment why Vincent related to cats so much, because if anyone were meant to be wild, free from the chains of society, allowed to flourish, it was Vincent. And he’d been caged his whole life, first by his white collar upbringing and now by Shinra.

Veld wondered, as Vincent rested his head against his shoulder and Veld’s hand rose to trail through his raven locks, what would happen if he could set Vincent free. Would he come back? Or would he leave the same way that damned orange cat would, when it got bored or found a more comfortable place to stay? He found himself almost relieved that he would never have to find out, but felt immediately guilty for the sentiment.

Absently, he traced his thumb over the DAR logo inked into Vincent’s left forearm, the one they’d gotten together on the anniversary of their first year of partnership in the Turks. He wore a matching one in the same spot. It had been Vincent’s idea, though he’d been a bit tipsy at the time, but Veld had gone along with it happily. Now he couldn’t help but feel like those marks were a brand of bondage, proof of Shinra’s ownership.

“Have you ever thought about leaving Midgar, Vince?” Veld whispered into his partner’s hair. Vincent jolted a little at that, sitting up so he could meet Veld’s eyes.

“Leaving Midgar?” he echoed in surprise, then the greater meaning registered. “Leaving _Shinra_?”

“Yeah,” Veld muttered. “I… I know you don’t like the idea of anyone owning you. Are you okay with belonging to the Shinra forever?”

“No one owns me, Veld,” Vincent said seriously. “Certainly not Shinra. Look, I _like_ my job, okay? Can’t imagine anything else I’d be particularly good at, either. So I stay.” He shrugged, as if it were that simple, as if Shinra wouldn’t send agents after him if he tried to leave. Still, that wasn’t what bothered Veld.

“That has to be the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard you say,” Veld said in disbelief, shaking his head. Vincent gave him a questioning look. “I’m a brute, Vincent, have been all my life. It’s all I’m good for, really. I can’t do shit else. I’m not educated. My only skills involve turning living people into dead ones. But you… you speak like three languages, you fuck. You play piano. I’m pretty sure you’re the smartest person I know. What the fuck do you _mean_ you can’t imagine anything else you’d be particularly good at?”

Vincent blinked at him, gaze steady and intense.

“Yeah, Veld. I’m a spoiled rich kid. One who got thrown out of my spoiled rich kid school for being fucking crazy, then proved the point by murdering a few company employees before I was old enough to lose my virginity. You’ve only ever been a brute? What do you think I am?”

Vincent took a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table, lit it, and puffed on it in silence for a while. Veld sighed and lit one of his own, resting a hand apologetically on Vincent’s thigh. After a moment, Vincent turned to regard him again, expression sharp and cold, eyes piercing.

“You are the only person who has ever seen me, Veld,” he said intensely. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve gone blind.”

Veld shook his head, reaching up to brush Vincent’s dark hair back from his face. It was time to trim it again; it was almost long enough to tuck behind his ear.

“Of course not,” he assured Vincent gently. “I just… Vince, sometimes I think you get so caught up in that darkness in you that you forget there’s light there, too. Yeah, you’re a killer, but you also take care of stray animals. You make music pretty enough hearing it almost makes me tear up. You’re fucking cute with kids too. And you’re brilliant, Vincent, so gods-damned brilliant. I just… I need to know that you know that.”

“I love you, Veld,” Vincent whispered.

“Right now, I’d rather hear you say you love yourself,” Veld said softly, pulling Vincent in closer. Vincent let out a little hum of contentment, curling against Veld like a cat. But he stayed silent, and after a while, Veld just sighed. “I love you too.”


	4. An Ode to Lost Jigsaw Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent collects obituaries. In them, Veld sees a ghost.
> 
> TW: homophobia, death of a loved one. Not a feel-good chapter, kids

Veld stared down at the obituary clipping in his hands, a photograph in black-and-white newsprint staring up at him like a ghost from his past.

_Mitchell Connery,_ the obituary read, _was born on August 13, 1942 to Joseph and Eliza Connery. Mitchell, age 24, passed away on October 3 rd, 1966. Mitchell is survived by his mother, Eliza, and his younger sister, Sarah._

Hands trembling now, Veld brushed his thumb across the face in the photograph.

_Mitch had always worn his hair long as a kid. Some of Veld’s earliest memories, ones that weren’t of the sounds of his parents arguing in the next room or the stench of gin on his father’s breath, were of playing with Mitchell’s hair in the empty lot beside their apartment building that locals called a park, but was actually just the plot for an empty store that had been torn down years ago. It was blond and soft like cornsilk, and he could still remember the way it felt in his fingers, the way Mitchell had leaned into him as he’d twisted it idly._

_He’d shared his first cigarette with the boy, filched from Mitch’s old man, on the rooftop of their building. They’d maybe been eleven at the time, and when they’d finished choking down the smoke, Veld had started playing with Mitchell’s hair, shorter now than when they were little, but just as soft. When Mitchell leaned in to press his lips to Veld’s, hesitant and clumsy, the kiss—both of their first—tasted like tobacco._

_It hadn’t been anything serious, not really, but they found solace in each other in those early years, two slum kids from hard households looking for comfort in closeness. It wasn’t long after that first kiss that Veld’s old man caught them in bed, and there hadn’t been any way to pass it off as anything other than what it was. His father hadn’t even let him put his shirt and shoes back on before kicking him out of the house, and he knew by the bruise on Mitchell’s jaw when he saw him the next day the other boy had narrowly escaped the same fate._

_And just like that, Veld had nothing. He’d taken up with the syndicate after that, learned pretty quickly that, even though he was a fuck-up at everything else, he was pretty good at killing. He learned to hide his weakness behind swear words and sarcasm, learned to channel his anger at the world into a bullet._

_The last time Veld spoke to Mitchell, it was at a bar, and he’d been well on his way to being shitfaced when he’d spotted his childhood sweetheart playing pool and decided it was a good idea to buy the man a drink. It was the same lapse in logic, combined with raging hormones and general loneliness, that had possessed him to pull the other man into a kiss, right there in front of Mitch's new gang._

_It had earned Veld a broken nose and took some of the rose-tint from those childhood memories, but despite Mitchell’s promise to kick his ass if he ever set eyes on him again, he’d honestly thought bruised pride and the reemergence of that dreaded “f” word floating in his wake would be the worst of it until that day in the alley._

_“Well, well, well, look who we have here. Last I checked, you weren’t welcome in our territory, faggot…”_

_Vincent pulling the blond man off him and smashing Mitchell’s head into the brick wall of the alleyway, blood blooming bright in that soft blond hair. His first glance at the berserker_ …

Dimly, Veld registered footsteps behind him.

“What the fuck is this?” Veld asked Vincent tonelessly, dropping Mitchell’s obituary back into the pile of them he’d discovered in the open-top box in Vincent’s sock drawer.

“…They’re obituaries,” Vincent answered hesitantly.

“Well, I fucking see _that_ ,” Veld stated dryly, turning to face his partner. “Why the fuck do you _have_ them?”

Vincent didn’t reply to that, those pretty mahogany eyes of his flitting away from Veld’s, dropping to study the grain in the hardwood near his feet. With a sigh and a curse, Veld sank down onto Vincent’s full-sized bed, lighting a cigarette with gently trembling hands.

“You get how fucking _creepy_ this looks, right?” Veld asked after a while. Still, Vincent said nothing, coming to settle down beside Veld on the bed instead, gesturing for a cigarette. Veld lit one and passed it to him.

“…It doesn’t seem right,” Vincent began after a long while, still not looking at Veld. “We don’t just kill people for a living, Veld—that part doesn’t bother me—we _make people disappear_. We vanish them. At best, the families get some bullshit story and a body to bury. At worst, they’re a missing persons ad never answered. And they leave people behind. It… doesn’t seem right, Veld, to pretend my hands aren’t stained by that sin. So I keep them. To remember.”

Veld blinked the tears away from his eyes.

“Every time a person dies,” Vincent whispered into the long silence that followed, “the world changes forever. Maybe not to me. Or to you. But to somebody, somewhere. _That’s_ what we do for a living, Veld.”

Trembling hands lit another cigarette, and Veld rose from the bed again, retrieving the box from Vincent’s sock drawer. He looked through it in silence. Obituaries, missing persons reports, personal ads put in the newspaper by families looking for lost loved ones. The face of every person he and Valentine and killed together for Shinra. Veld had been a killer since he was fifteen, but that afternoon, staring down into the eyes of a dead man he’d almost loved once, he felt guilty for that for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you've read my longer fic, there's a scene where Vincent and Veld run into some thugs in an alley, and it hints and one of them and Veld have a past. I wanted to elaborate on that a little bit but couldn't really do it there, so here you go.


	5. Bedroom Hymns (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a close call on a mission, an injured Vincent stops by Veld's apartment to soothe his ruffled feathers, but almost watching him die has made Veld realize one thing--he can't lose Vincent Valentine. Or, Vincent and Veld's first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot, what plot?

Vincent knocked softly at the door of Veld’s apartment, knowing the man was expecting him. Vincent had promised to come by as soon as he was released from medical, though it had taken a bit longer than he’d thought it would to patch him up from the fight. His arm still ached, muscles newly reknitted together by a heal materia still stiff and sore. Absently, he tugged at the band from medical still on his left wrist, wishing he’d cut it off before coming over. Veld would be angry enough without the visual reminder of his injuries.

Vincent gave a sheepish smile as Veld opened the door, stone-faced, and stepped aside to let him through. He was on Vincent the moment he closed the door behind him, slamming the taller man back against it with force, gripping him by the injured forearm hard enough to send a sharp ache shooting through his nerves.

“Don’t you ever pull that shit again,” Veld growled, his voice a menacing rumble in Vincent’s ear.

“That’s an interesting way of thanking me for saving your life,” Vincent said lightly. Veld was worried, that was all. He knew the feeling.

“You almost bled out, you asshole!” Veld snapped, voice inching closer to a shout. “You could have gone for your gun! You could have gone after the guy holding me, and we could have fought them off together. But no! You were fucking _hurt_ , and you decided just to take them all on alone!”

"Because he would have shot you otherwise!" Vincent replied indignantly, and for a brief moment, he felt it again, the pang of dread that had gripped his heart like an iron vice when he'd reached for the pistol at his side and the man holding Veld pulled back the slide of his gun and pressed the barrel hard against the side of Veld's head, n unspoken threat that couldn’t have been communicated more clearly. "I didn't have a choice."

"Bullshit," Veld growled. "You were being reckless."

_"I didn't have a choice,"_ Vincent repeated again, firmly. "You _know_ that. You're just angry I got hurt."

"Fuck, _yeah,_ I'm angry you got hurt!" Veld's voice broke a little. "I thought I was gonna lose you, you idiot."

"Oh, Veld," Vincent murmured, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of hair behind Veld's ear. Veld caught his hand and looked up to meet his gaze, and the older man's dark caramel eyes were serious and intense. 

"I don't want your pity, Valentine," he said seriously. "I want you to promise me that you'll start being _careful."_

Gaia, Vincent mused to himself regretfully. He really had scared him, and whether he thought it was necessary or not, he felt guilty for that. 

"...I promise," Vincent said sincerely after a moment, and Veld swept him into a kiss, long and lingering, Vincent’s gloved fingers knotting in his hair as Veld held the man close by slender hips.

He pushed Vincent back against the door again, pinning him there with his weight, chest-to-chest as he slipped his tongue into Vincent’s mouth, and gods, he tasted like chamomile and sin, intoxicating. Veld’s hands found their way beneath Vincent’s shirt, one palm pressed to the small of his back as the other trailed over his skin, still pulling him closer, always closer. And Vincent’s lips were gentle, lingering, but Veld was hungry, burning, burning in what was left of his anger and his worry, burning in Vincent fucking Valentine. Veld’s kisses were a claim, a possession, as if they might anchor this man here and keep him there for eternity.

Veld’s fingers loosened the knot of Vincent’s tie, cast it aside before he began working on the buttons of his work shirt, the younger Turk giving a breathy growl as Veld bit down on his lower lip and tugged. One of Vincent’s hands left his hair, trailed down the length of his spine to cup his ass and pull him close, legs tangling together. Veld gave a low hum at the friction of Vincent’s thigh against his swelling erection, and he found his hand moving to unbuckle Vincent’s belt before he stopped himself, suddenly realizing what he was doing.

“Vince,” Veld whispered hesitantly. Fuck, he wanted this, but it had been what, a month, since Vincent had first kissed him? He’d slept over a time or two since, when it had gotten too late or they had gotten too drunk, but always on the sofa. They had never _defined_ this, whatever _this_ was, and part of Veld was terrified to, terrified that it didn’t mean the same thing to Vincent as it did to him…

“The bedroom might be a more comfortable place for this,” Vincent breathed in a husky whisper, shaking Veld from his contemplations, thoughts scattering into white noise at the unabashed want laid bare in Vincent’s voice. 

“Are you sure?” Veld breathed. “I don’t want to push you.”

“You aren’t,” Vincent assured. As if to prove the point, he took Veld by the shoulders and spun them both around until it was the older Turk with his back against the door, and Vincent's fingers were sure and certain as he unbuttoned Veld’s pants and tugged them to the floor, taking his boxers along with them and sinking gracefully to his knees. Veld let out a shaky breath as Vincent glanced up at him through long lashes, expression dark and hungry, before the younger Turk closed his eyes and leaned in. Veld inhaled sharply at the heat of Vincent’s breath against his cock, but he ignored Veld’s erection for now, nibbling gently at the sensitive skin of his inner thigh instead, working his way slowly upwards, until Vincent’s long nose was trailing through the dark curls at the base of his cock, lips skating along the shaft until he reached the head. Mahogany eyes flicked back up to meet Veld’s as Vincent’s tongue flicked out to taste the precum beading at the tip.

“Fuck,” he gasped as Vincent wrapped his mouth around the flushed head of his cock. As much as he wanted to watch Vincent’s pretty mouth stretch around him as the younger Turk took him deeper, he found his eyes flickering closed, head tilting back towards the ceiling as he moaned, fist clenching in Vincent’s hair. This put to rest one unspoken uncertainty he had, at least, the one about whether or not Vincent had done this with another man before. He used that mouth like a weapon, one well-honed with practice.

Veld was panting when Vincent drew away with a glistening smile, those lovely eyes of his lust-glazed and yearning.

“Fuck,” Veld shuddered. “Yeah. The bedroom then.”

He reached out for Vincent, gripping the young man’s hand and helping him to rise before making his way to his bedroom with shaky legs, kicking off his trousers along the way. He began to unbutton his shirt at his bedside, but Vincent slipped up beside him, stepping into his arms and batting Veld's hands aside, making a low noise of admonishment in his throat. Veld let the raven-haired man grip him by the collar and followed obediently as Vincent dragged him towards the bed, shoving him down onto the mattress with force. Veld settled down on the side of the bed, and Vincent bumped his knee with his own, nudging his legs apart.

“Gaia, you’re beautiful,” Veld breathed as Vincent stepped between his knees, and he reached out with calloused, blunt-fingered hands to grip the knobs of his hips and draw the smaller man in closer. He planted a shaky kiss to the hollow of Vincent’s throat, brushed his shirt aside with his nose so he could trace his mouth along the line of his collarbone before nipping at the skin of his chest. That drew a noise out of Vincent, a desperate, barely-restrained thing he caught in his throat, so Veld gripped his hair and tugged his face down roughly, claiming the skin of his throat with lips and teeth, marking his perfect paleness with purpling bruises that seemed to read _mine, mine, mine_. The feeling of possessiveness was strange, a thing he had never encountered in himself before, but it had his hooks deep in him now—the need to claim this man, to hold him close and never let him go. 

“Don’t you ever fucking scare me like that again,” he growled against Vincent’s jawline. “Don’t you dare leave me like that.” Vincent gripped his jaw then and tilted Veld’s face up to meet his.

“Never,” Vincent swore solemnly before shoving him back onto the mattress and climbing on top of him, straddling Veld’s waist and leaning down to claim his lips. Veld gripped the backs of his thighs, taut and strong despite their slenderness, and arched into Vincent to find friction. Vincent made another low noise of disapproval, readjusting as he settled his weight down onto Veld’s legs, pinning him in place.

“ _Vincent_ ,” he breathed desperately, impatiently.

“You want to fuck me?” Vincent whispered, and Veld couldn’t help but notice that his voice was shaky, just the slightest bit. He bobbed his head in response, inhaling sharply. “Then let me do this right,” he pleaded.

Another nod from Veld, and Vincent leaned over him, propping himself up on one elbow as his free hand moved to the buttons of Veld’s shirt. He worked them open slowly, taking his time. When his shirt finally fell open, Vincent rested his palm against Veld’s sternum, fingers spread wide. He drew back for the briefest moment, slipping his black leather gloves off slowly and casting them aside before resting his hand over Veld’s heart. Vincent’s hands were big, fingers slender and graceful, but long, and Veld shuddered again as Vincent ran them slowly along the expanse of his chest, ivory on bronze. He reached up and slid Vincent’s shirt off his shoulders, humming at the sight of him, because Vincent was a predator, purpose-built for destruction, and it was written into every line of him. He was a wildcat—all taut, compact muscle and improbable grace. And gods, did it feel good at that moment to be his prey. Absently, he raised his fingers to the skin of Vincent’s stomach, tracing the down-soft line of hair that trailed towards the waistband of his slacks. His hand skated across the buckle of his belt and gently palmed his arousal.

Another soft noise from Vincent, quiet and restrained, and it made Veld want nothing more than to see this man undone, all of his inscrutable looks and iron walls stripped away. He unbuckled Vincent’s belt deftly before putting his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders and guiding him back into the mattress. Vincent arched his hips up compliantly when Veld unzipped his slacks, letting the older Turk slip off his pants, casting them, along with his underwear, into the floor.

They laid there for a moment, side-by-side, legs tangling together, meeting one another’s eyes.

“You sure about this?” Veld whispered. In response, the younger Turk caught his hand, brought his fingers to his mouth. Veld brushed his thumb across Vincent’s lower lip, and Vincent chased his fingers, catching two in his mouth and pulling them in to suck wetly before humming his assent. Veld rolled himself on top of his partner, and Vincent released his fingers, spreading his legs to bracket Veld’s hips. He arched into Veld prettily as the older Turk slipped one finger inside and touched him in that place that made him see stars. For a moment, Veld just watched him, enraptured, as Vincent’s head tipped back, eyes flickering closed, breaths coming shakily through parted lips, but aside from the hitch in his breath when Veld first slipped inside him, he stayed quiet. He gasped when Veld pressed a second finger inside abruptly, and Veld let out a little hum of satisfaction.

He took it as his cue to pull away for a moment, savoring the little whine Vincent let out as he withdrew in order to fumble through his bedside table for a bottle of lube. Vincent’s eyes followed him, still alert, though he looked just the slightest bit dazed, and Veld couldn’t help but think that he was pretty like this, when he wasn’t thinking so hard. When he relaxed. He didn’t think he’d ever seen it before.

“Oh, what?” Veld taunted as he returned with the bottle. “Teasing’s only fun when you’re the one doing it?”

“Of course,” Vincent breathed, and Veld just laughed, slicking his fingers in lube before setting it back down on the bed within reach.

“Where were we?” he murmured against Vincent’s throat, brushing against the rim of his entrance teasingly before slipping his fingers back inside. As he continued to work Vincent open, he trailed a line of kisses down his chest, pausing occasionally to suck a new hickey into his skin. The lingering smell of his incense melded well with his cologne, but beneath that, there was a sweet, earthy scent that was distinctly Vincent.

“Vel,” Vincent gasped as Veld wrapped his mouth around his neglected erection, fingers still not missing a beat, and Veld never wanted to stop hearing Vincent say his name that way, more breath than sound, velvet against the dimness of the room. Vincent was close when he finally pulled away; Veld could read it in his breathing, the shuddering of his hips.

“You ready?” Veld whispered.

“Just… one second,” Vincent replied shakily, and Veld smiled at that, taking the opportunity to find the lube and slick himself up, taking the opportunity to study Vincent, contemplating how sweet it was to watch him slowly unravel.

Those mahogany eyes of his, usually so sharp and scrutinizing, were lust-glazed and heavy-lidded, and his raven hair was a tousled mess, lips kiss-swollen. His expression was open in a way Veld wasn’t used to, but more than that, there was a sense of _distance_ he always felt around Vincent that was absent now. He was fully here, fully present in the moment in a way Veld had only ever witnessed in Vincent before when he was killing, but it was a soft sort of openness on his face now.

Right then, in that moment, it felt like they were the only two people in the world. Veld didn’t resist as Vincent gently guided him down onto the bed and settled into his lap, the eager press of Veld’s cock against the crease of his ass. Veld smiled, grabbing him gently by the hips, and Vincent let out his breath in a shudder.

“Vel…” he began in a whisper, but he trailed off, shaking his head at himself.

“What?” Veld pressed gently, but Vincent just shook his head again and gave him a little smile.

“It can wait,” Vincent assured before reaching down to wrap one hand around Veld’s cock, guiding him into place, eyes flickering closed as he felt the press of him. Vincent sank down slowly, but took Veld to the hilt in one motion before pausing, and Veld gave him a moment to adjust, one hand trailing soothing circles into the skin of his thigh. Vincent started slowly, just the faintest roll of his hips, but after a moment he found a rhythm, and for a little while, Veld laid back and just enjoyed him, letting Vincent slowly take himself apart, until his legs grew shaky and his breaths came in shudders.

Veld gripped him by the hips then, urging Vincent off of him and coaxing him back into the pillows. Vincent was flushed and trembling, skin shimmering with sweat under the dim track lighting overhead. His hair stuck to his forehead, and he arched into Veld’s touch like a cat when Veld reached out and brushed it back from his face with a smile. Veld tickled the buzzed hair at the nape of Vincent’s neck as he leaned over Vincent and lined himself up, and Vincent let out a throaty moan as he slipped inside, burying himself into Vincent’s waiting heat in one swift motion.

And gods, it might have been love, but that didn’t mean it had to be gentle, Veld realized as he hooked Vincent’s leg over his shoulder and gripped the headboard for support, because Vincent came apart a little bit more each time he tugged his hair, each time sank his teeth into the tender skin of his earlobe. And Veld had thought, in their year of partnership, that he had learned to read this man, his inscrutable looks and subtle shifts in tone, but here he’d discovered another language he’d yet to learn, a secret language that Vincent had yet to teach him. Veld wanted to know it all, each secret sound, each moan, each movement that made him arch into his touch.

“Veld,” Vincent gasped in warning, and Veld nodded, wrapping one hand around Vincent to finish him off, because fuck, he was close too. Vincent was loud when he came, all restraint lost as he spilled into Veld’s hand and Veld followed him over the edge after.

They slumped back against the pillows together, boneless and languid, each limb feeling much too heavy to move as they both tried to catch their breath and regather their wits. Finally, Vincent rolled over onto his side, and Veld followed him, wrapping an arm around his waist as he pressed Vincent’s back into his chest and curled against him.

There was silence in the peace of the afterglow, but as Veld’s head cleared, his anxiety grew. Because fuck, he had it bad, didn’t he? There was no longer any lying to himself about that, not after tonight. His need to define this, to know if his feelings were reciprocated, was almost as strong as his fear of jeopardizing everything they _did_ have together.

 _Should I just stay quiet?_ he wondered. _Ride this train to its destination, whatever that may be?_

“You were saying something,” Veld recalled at last, his voice a murmur against Vincent’s hair. “Before.” Vincent said nothing, though his hand did come up to wrap around Veld’s own, fingers intertwining. “Vincent,” Veld prompted.

Silence again, stretching out so long that Veld had almost given up hope of Vincent ever breaking it, but finally, his partner whispered into the darkness, “What is this, Veld? To you?”

 _Fuck_ , Veld thought numbly.

“What do _you_ think it is?” he retorted. Vincent rolled over on his back so he could meet Veld’s eyes, and oh, _those_ were the eyes Veld knew so well, piercing and deadly and boring straight down to his soul. 

“Don’t play games with me, Veld,” he said firmly.

“I’m not,” Veld protested. “I just…I _like_ what we have, you know? I don’t want to fuck that up.”

“So you’re saying you don’t want this to go any further,” Vincent translated tonelessly.

“I’m saying I’m _scared_ ,” Veld corrected, voice breaking a little. He turned away at that, trying to hide his face, but Vincent reached up, gently turning Veld’s face back towards his own.

“Scared of what, Veld?” he whispered, and those mahogany eyes of his were warm, so warm, when Veld met them.

“That this doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it does to me,” Veld admitted finally. “And that if I admit it, it’s just going to fuck everything up, and I would rather have this and only this than not have you at all, because, _fuck_ , Vince, I… I don’t think I can live a life that you’re not in. I realized that, today, I think, and—”

Vincent cut Veld off with his lips, drawing him back down into the pillows as his long fingers trailed gently through Veld’s chocolate-brown hair. He broke the kiss, but didn’t draw away, resting his forehead against Veld and wrapping his arm around the other man.

“I love you,” Vincent whispered against his lips. Veld gave a shaky sigh of relief, tension melting away from his shoulders, and he reached out to clutch Vincent closer, drawing him to his chest. 

“I love you too,” he admitted, and Gaia, did it feel good to say it aloud.


	6. The Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent is trying to help Veld open a bank account when the bank is held up by a robber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was looking for prompts in order to help shake my writer's block and came across this one: "Your characters are holding a high-stakes rock-paper-scissors tournament" and it was too ridiculous not to write about. That said, this chapter is more violent than most of what I write. 
> 
> Pre-relationship

“I just can’t believe you’ve made it this far into life without a bank account, Veld,” Vincent murmured quietly to his partner, his voice barely carrying over the din of the busy bank. During a recent discussion about finances—mostly centered around how they both spent too much damn money on alcohol and should probably find a less expensive coping mechanism before they both went broke—Vincent had realized Veld didn’t even have a checking account and demanded the older man come with him to the bank to open one.

“Never had enough gil to bother before,” Veld said truthfully with a shrug. They had changed out of uniform for the afternoon, and Veld allowed himself to appreciate the anonymity of blending into a crowd. Out of their suits, no one spared them a second glance; no one shied away or stared as they passed. No gazes lingered on their backs. It wasn’t often that he got to feel invisible, and he took the moment to savor it.

Vincent just sighed at that, shaking his head. “What have you done up until now?” he questioned. “Just kept it in a shoebox under your bed?”

“I mean…” Veld began sheepishly.

“Veld,” Vincent said flatly, disbelieving.

“It’s an old cookie tin, actually, and it’s in my sock drawer, but….basically.”

Vincent muttered something under his breath in Wutian—not a swear, Veld knew all of those, at least—that he was fairly certain was an insult. Or an expression of pity. The possibility of it being the latter made him bristle a bit.

“This isn’t exactly the kind of shit they teach you in the slums, alright? Most of the people in my apartment complex were lucky to have a handful of gil left over after necessities. And everyone who _did_ have money got it in some illicit fashion or another, so it’s not like they exactly had bank accounts either.”

“Alright,” Vincent relented. “I’m not judging you.”

“You absolutely _are_ judging me,” Veld said indignantly.

“I’m not judging you _anymore_ ,” Vincent conceded, “and I shouldn’t have in the first place.”

“Gaia, you’re ridiculous,” Veld sighed. “Can’t you just…I don’t know, be an asshole sometimes, like everybody else?”

“I _am_ an asshole, Veld,” Vincent protested, and that gave Veld a bit of pause, because he _was_ , wasn’t he? Veld had certainly thought so the first time he’d met him. Why didn’t he feel that way anymore?

“Not to me,” Veld observed after a moment, contemplatively. For once, it was Vincent who pulled him away from his thoughts, not the other way around.

“Would you _like_ for me to be an asshole to you?” Vincent asked sarcastically.

“Well, now you’re just being purposefully obtuse,” Veld griped, but Vincent just gave a little shrug at that and nudged Veld forward in line. “ _Why_ aren’t you an asshole to me?” he pressed, undeterred. That earned him another little shrug from Vincent.

“You’re my partner,” the younger Turk answered simply, as if it should have been obvious, and Veld supposed it should have been. It was wishful thinking to believe it might be anything more, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t want it to be. Almost a year into their partnership, and Veld could finally admit that to himself, though it was a secret he was thoroughly determined to take to the grave.

“Next,” the teller at the counter in front of them called tiredly. A brief pause, and she cleared her throat. “ _Next_.”

“ _Veld_ ,” Vincent hissed sharply, nudging the older man with his elbow.

“Oh. Shit,” Veld shook himself back to reality and started forward towards the counter. “Sorry.”

 _“You really should pay attention to your surroundings,”_ Vincent mocked under his breath, a phrase the older man had parroted at him more than once early in their partnership, when he had still sometimes mistaken Vincent’s general detachment for obliviousness.

“Oh. Right. I just remembered. You _are_ an asshole,” Veld muttered before turning his attention to the attendant, who sighed and gave her best try at a tired smile.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” she asked, politely enough.

“We’re here to open a bank account,” Vincent supplied when Veld’s silence stretched out a beat too long.

“A joint account?” she prompted, and Veld flushed just the slightest bit.

“Um…oh. No. Just for me,” he corrected with a wince.

“Of course,” she said mildly. “I’ll just need to see your ID.”

Veld was reaching into his pocket for his wallet when Vincent grappled him and took them both down on the tiled floor. Veld landed with a grunt and a surprised curse, but as he took in a breath to question Vincent, the younger man cut over him, his voice low but urgent.

“Shut up. Stay down,” Vincent warned.

Just as Veld was about to respond, gunshots rang out near the entrance, the sound echoing sharply through the large building, and the crowd of civilians screamed, more in surprise than fear, for now. A few of the prudent ones joined Vincent and Veld on the floor, but most of them hadn’t registered what was happening yet.

“Move,” Vincent hissed at Veld, crouching low as they tried to move behind the counter to find cover. More gunshots. More screams. And _those_ were screams of terror, this time, as the crowd finally realized what was going on.

“Everybody get on the ground!” a voice shouted over the cacophony, and all eyes turned towards the source of it. “I said get on the ground! Keep your hands up where I can see them! I said on the ground!” Another gunshot, and the few civilians who remained standing quickly complied.

“Shit,” Vincent whispered, holding his palms up. They’d only managed to make it a few feet, not far enough to find cover. “Don’t draw attention to yourself,” he said under his breath to Veld, nudging him with an elbow pointedly. The older Turk reluctantly raised his hands.

The gunman strode forward with the sort of confidence that could only be found in a syringe, eyes glassy and just a bit unhinged, bruise-dark from lack of sleep. He walked up to the teller they’d just spoken to, training his weapon on the young woman, who certainly didn’t look tired anymore.

“Hand over the money!” he commanded. Hands trembling, she stepped forward and fumbled with the lock on her cash drawer. “Come on, hurry it up!”

She emptied out the cash drawer and set the contents on the counter before taking a few quick steps backwards, further away from the man. He scooped the pile of cash into a bag, scowling.

“This all there is?” he asked, and she nodded frantically. The man tsked. “See, that’s not gonna work. Open the vault.”

“I….I can’t,” she stammered. The gunman turned and fired into the crowd, and the thud of the body hitting the marble floor could be heard clearly in the shocked silence that followed as blood began to spread across the tiles.

“Don’t bullshit me. I used to fucking work here. I know you can get in there,” the gunman growled. “Tell me no again, and I shoot someone else. And then I’ll keep shooting as many people as I need to in order to make you talk. Got it?”

“We…we upgraded security on the vault a few weeks ago. I…I’m sorry…I—”

Another shot into the crowd. Another round of screams. People were sobbing now. Beside him, Vincent felt Veld tense. They were Turks; they worked for Shinra, not the city. They were under no obligation to help here. Still, sitting by and watching it happen felt wrong. Slowly, Veld’s hand began to inch towards his gun. He almost had it, but someone nearby accidentally knocked over a wastebasket, and the gunman turned towards the noise, noticing Veld as he did.

“Oh, no you don’t,” the man sneered, training his gun on Veld, who promptly raised his hands again. He gestured towards a young girl crouching nearby, waving her in Veld’s direction with the tip of his rifle. “You’re gonna take his gun, kid, and when you have it, you’re going to put it on the floor and slide it over to me, got it?.” He waited for the girl to do as he asked, taking Veld’s second pistol at his prompting as well. After a beat, the gunman regarded Vincent, seeming to recognize something in the flintiness of his expression, and he had the girl search him too. Vincent gritted his teeth when she slid his hand cannon across the tiled floor.

“What exactly did you think you were doing? Trying to play the hero? Is that it? Is this a game to you?” He laughed then, the sound tinged with mania. “You should have _told_ me we were playing a game I _love_ games! I’m not very fond of that one, though. I think everyone here can agree that the bad guy deserves to win sometimes. So let’s change it up a bit...Hm… what about Rock, Paper, Scissors?”

“… _What_?” It was all Veld could say.

“Which part was difficult to understand? We play Rock, Paper, Scissors, and when you lose, I shoot somebody.”

“Sounds like a shit game,” Veld pointed out, rising cautiously to his feet. “Why would I play? What do I get if _I_ win?”

The gunman gave a contemplative hum. “I suppose I could let someone go.”

“Okay then,” Veld agreed hesitantly. 

At this point, he would do pretty much anything to stall, and besides, even if just one person got out, they could go for help. A strange mix of feelings left Veld uneasy as he approached the man to begin their “game”—anxiety like a lead weight in his abdomen, anger at the man in front of him, a twinge of fear about facing him unarmed, and finally, to top it all off, a peculiar, vague sense of embarrassment at playing a children’s game with another grown man as a crowd watched on in rapture. It was like a nightmare gone wrong—in the same vein as those ones where you had to give a speech with no pants—but it was really happening.

“You better still be working on getting that safe open, sweetheart!” the man called over his shoulder before turning towards Veld, propping his rifle against his leg and holding his fist over his open palm expectantly. Reluctantly, Veld followed suit. “Ready?” he asked Veld eagerly.

“You’re a fucking lunatic, you know,” Veld muttered, but the guy just gave another maniacal laugh at that.

“Rock, paper, scissors, _shoot_ ,” the man said with glee, though his face quickly morphed into a scowl when Veld’s paper defeated his rock. “Two out of three,” he demanded.

“You can’t just change the rules in the middle of the game,” Veld protested, and his scowl became a glare.

_“Two. Out of. Three,”_ he repeated firmly, fingering the barrel of his gun for a moment. Seeing that he really had no other choice, Veld complied. The gunman won the next round, and they squared off for the tie breaker.

“Rock, paper, scissors…” the gunman trailed off, grinning when Veld threw out paper again. He made a snipping motion with his scissors, raised his rifle, aimed it, and with a grin finished, “Shoot.”

More screams from the crowd. Veld flinched a little, not entirely because of the crack of the gunfire.

“Let’s go again,” he said to Veld as if nothing had happened, as if it really _were_ just a game.

“Fuck you,” Veld spat, and the man raised the rifle again, fired at another hostage. Veld flinched again.

“Are you going to play with me or not?” the man said with an exaggerated pout. “I can keep going.”

Veld caught a flash of movement in his peripheral, fought the instinctive urge to follow it, knowing glancing towards him would give him away. He knew it was Vincent, even if he wasn’t sure what the fuck the younger Turk was trying. He raised his hands again and pretended not to notice they were trembling a little. He didn’t get it—it wasn’t like he was unaccustomed to violence, but this was making his heart pound in a way he’d almost forgotten it could.

Veld won the next two matches in a row.

“Can’t win now,” Veld pointed out. “Time to let someone go.” The gunman’s eyes narrowed again.

“Three out of five,” he stated flatly. Under his breath, Veld swore, but he resigned himself to continuing this charade. The gunman took the next two rounds. A tie breaker again, then.

_Fuck this shit_ , Veld thought to himself as the gunman raised his fist. He was going for the gun.

“Rock, paper, scissors—”

Just as the gunman was about to say “shoot,” Veld dove for his rifle. He came up with the weapon with more ease than he expected, and for an instant his confusion grew when he straightened, aiming the gun, and the gunman coughed up blood in his face.

He took a step back as the man dropped to his knees and slumped towards the floor, face-first. For a brief instant, Veld blinked at the handle of the scissors sticking out of the man’s neck before glancing up to find Vincent standing there, glaring down at the corpse with cold anger.

“I think that was against the rules,” Veld muttered dumbly. Vincent looked up at that, darkness bleeding from his expression like shadows fleeing the sun, and gave Veld a wicked little smile.

“I used scissors,” Vincent pointed out. For a moment, Veld stared back at the corpse in silence, observing the handle of the scissors again. Then he just laughed---helplessly, hysterically.

“I don’t think that’s what that means,” Veld gasped when he’d caught his breath. Vincent gave a graceful, disinterested shrug.

“House rules,” he replied casually before turning back to the teller, who was still standing frozen behind the counter. “He’d like to open a bank account.”

The girl just stared at him for a long moment before blinking once, slowly, in disbelief. Vincent flashed her a smile. She reached up, unpinned the nametag from her blouse, and set it on the counter.

“That’s it,” she declared to no one. “I quit.” She stood there for a moment more, as if unsure of what to do next, before shaking her head and turning away. “They don’t pay me enough for this shit,” she muttered as she left.


	7. The Night Does Not Belong to God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent and Veld investigate an abandoned church. Vincent plays piano. Veld has a revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is honestly just all over the place. Lots of made up childhood trauma and romantic tension. I present this mess for your enjoyment (I hope).

Veld was going to die of boredom.

 _Such a common phrase_ , he mused as he lounged in the Turk’s breakroom and stared, uncomprehending, at the pages of the paperback in front of him. _I wonder if it’s actually possible_. If it was, he was going to find out soon enough, that was for damn sure. He set his book down. He’d read the same paragraph four times and still had no idea what it had said. He needed to fucking shoot something.

“You want to play cards?” Ace asked eagerly from the corner table when he noticed the movement.

“You cheat,” Veld replied flatly, disinterested. Ace shrugged and turned back to his newspaper.

In the Turks, downtime was usually something precious, rare moments of peace to be savored when they came. Most of the time, Veld would kill—literally—for a chance to lounge around like this for an afternoon, but those “rare” moments of peace had been far too common lately, and the novelty had worn off. Now he was just restless.

His gaze darted to the door when he sensed movement, sighing when he registered Vincent there.

“Trouble?” Veld asked eagerly, and the younger Turk just nodded. “Oh, thank Gaia,” Veld breathed, rising to his feet and checking his guns before buttoning his suit jacket. From his corner, Ace raised an eyebrow.

“You psychopaths were made for each other,” Ace informed them before shaking his head a little and glancing back down. Both men pointedly ignored him.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Veld bade, brushing past Vincent in the doorframe and starting towards the elevator. “Where are we going?” he asked as they waited for it.

“Sector Three,” Vincent replied. “There are reports of the syndicate running drugs out of an abandoned church there. Boss wants us to see if there’s any truth to the rumor. It’s also supposedly haunted, though I don’t think we’re being sent there to check for that.”

Veld snorted quietly and rolled his eyes. “So…we taking a chopper?”

“I thought we’d take the train,” Vincent replied. Veld laughed at that, but cut off when Vincent’s expression didn’t change.

“You’re serious,” he observed dryly.

“Of course, we _can_ take a chopper, if you would like to get to Sector Three and back as quickly as possible. That is, if you have something important to do here. Did you tell Ace you’d let him drag you at cards again, maybe?”

“Ace cheats,” Veld grumbled.

“Ace doesn’t cheat. You’re just terrible.”

Veld punched him in the arm, half-heartedly.

“On the _other_ hand,” Vincent continued, ignoring him, “we can drag this out as long as humanly possible so _maybe_ we don’t have to look at the inside of the office again today.”

“That one,” Veld agreed.

“Then we take the train.”

It had taken the two Turks about ten seconds on the scene to realize that the church really was abandoned, and less than ten minutes to confirm that was the _only_ thing it had been for a very, very long time. Beneath each gaping hole in the chapel’s roof, piles of leaves had gathered long enough to turn to dirt, and a few sad-looking ferns clung to life in the detritus. The cathedral was lined with enormous stained-glass windows, but they were too shattered to guess at what the mosaics might once have been, shards of colored glass littering the floor, reflecting beams of colored light throughout the room.

“Well, there’s not shit here, but Shiva’s tits, is it beautiful,” Veld breathed after a little while, holstering his gun and gazing around in awe. “Vince?” he said after a moment, realizing that the younger man was standing, frozen, in the middle of the aisle, slender form taught as a bowstring.

Veld’s adrenaline spiked a little. Had they missed something _?_ He couldn’t help but wonder as he quickly strode over to Vincent’s side, but when he got close enough to read his partner’s face, he relaxed again. He wasn’t sure _what_ that look was, but it definitely didn’t mean danger.

He followed his Vincent’s gaze to the grand piano that stood behind the altar, and that brief pang of dread was replaced by curiosity.

“You know how to play?” Veld inquired.

Vincent didn’t reply, just moved forward towards the piano like a man in a trance, Veld following quietly a few steps behind. When he got there, Vincent gripped the edge of the piano’s lid hesitantly before closing his eyes and throwing it open abruptly, like ripping off a bandage.

When he glanced down, he was surprised to find the keyboard shockingly pristine. In fact, the entire piano was in astonishingly good condition compared to the rest of the church, spared the worst of the elements by the luck of ending up an in area that still had a ceiling. Trying to ignore the way his hands trembled, Vincent slipped off one of his gloves and ran his fingers along the keys, slowly playing a scale with one hand. To Veld, looking on, there was something strangely reverent in the gesture. Neither of them said anything as Vincent slipped his other glove off, draped his blazer across the back of the piano, pushed his sleeves up over his elbows, and began to play.

It wasn’t the first time Veld had heard someone play piano. He had been in churches a few times as a kid, on the rare holiday his parents had wanted to pretend like they were a family, or later, when he’d needed a warm place to rest for a while. They were a decent place to pick pockets too, not that he would ever recommend it to anyone—he’d accepted his own damnation, but that didn’t mean he had to give anyone else any ideas.

Still, he had never heard anything like this. He didn’t know much about music, but he could tell that Vincent was _good_ , damned good, and he found himself lost in that melancholy melody, drifting closer to his partner like a moth to flame.

Vincent kept his eyes closed as he played, his fingers graceful and certain on the keys. Veld, though, could hardly blink, could hardly look away from the younger Turk. He didn’t often get the chance to admire how damned entrancing he was, and he’d never witnessed Vincent quite like this before, utterly relaxed, head tipped skyward in reverie. He swayed a bit as he played, like a willow caught on the breeze, moving to the cadence of the music.

“Who taught you how to play?” Veld asked quietly after the sacred hush that followed the final chords faded, moving closer to stand beside Vincent, who promptly moved over on the piano bench to make Veld a spot.

“My mother,” Vincent said as Veld settled down beside him.

“Was she a professional? In an orchestra or something?” Veld knew Vincent came from money, and that seemed like the kind of job the pampered wife of a rich scientist might have, but Vincent shook his head.

“She was a botanist,” he corrected. “She worked in agriculture, mostly, trying to breed more sustainable crops. But she had an artist’s soul. She didn’t see them as opposing forces, art and science. After she got sick, she started breeding flowers in the greenhouse at the manor, and that… that was art too,” he murmured, his tone turning sad and contemplative.

“I don’t know anything about your mom,” Veld realized aloud after a moment. He knew, of course, that Vincent’s father was a Shinra scientist, but he couldn’t recall his partner ever talking about his mother.

“She died when I was eight,” Vincent murmured.

“I’m sorry,” Veld said, regretting the question, but Vincent just shook his head and gave a small, melancholy smile.

“It’s all right,” Vincent assured. “We had a good run of it, before then. Sometimes… sometimes I’m almost glad that she was gone before… things started getting bad, but then I hate myself for that thought. The year before, though, before she got really sick,” Vincent sighed. “It was the best year of my life.

“She came home as soon as it started, as soon as the doctors told us what it was. She could have kept working almost until the end, but she wanted to spend it with us. It was nothing, at first—little coughing fits that left her winded, occasional dizzy spells. She homeschooled me that year, and we put on recitals in the parlor for Father almost every night when he got home from work. We had almost a year of normalcy.

“She fell down the stairs on my eighth birthday, so my parents moved their room downstairs, trying to give her a little more time… but it didn’t matter. It happened fast, after that. A week after that she was in a wheelchair, and two weeks after that she couldn’t leave the bed anymore without help. Father set up a bed for her in the parlor, so she could be close to us, so she could watch me play, right up until the end.”

“What about you?” Vincent asked after a moment of silence. “You don’t talk about your family either. Do you have anyone left?”

“My ma died when I was eighteen,” Veld said after a beat, drawing out a cigarette. “Don’t know what they put on the death certificate, but it was forty years of hard living that did her in. Last time I saw the old man was at the funeral. He’s probably drank himself to death by now, ended up in some unmarked grave below the Plate. No one would care enough to notice. Good riddance.”

Veld sheltered his lighter from the draft and lit his cigarette, taking a deep drag and trying to pretend he couldn’t feel Vincent’s eyes on him.

“You really mean that,” Vincent observed mildly after a beat, without judgement, and Veld just shrugged.

“He threw me out onto the streets when I was twelve,” Veld explained. “Even before that, things were…bad. Both my parents were angry drunks, you know? It was a relief being out, in some ways.”

“I’m sorry, Veld,” Vincent said sincerely.

“Me too, sometimes, but it is what it is. Besides, if I hadn’t wound up working for the syndicate, I never would have ended up here, and don’t get me wrong, this life is a far cry from perfect, but it beats what probably would have happened if I’d stayed in that house. Grinding myself to the bone for a few gil at some factory until that or a lifetime of drinking rotgut put me into an early grave? No thank you.

“The slums below the Plate aren’t homes, Vince. They're fucking mousetraps. You’re gods-damned lucky to make it out of them in anything other than a cardboard box. And they’re _made_ that way, you know? It isn’t a design flaw; it’s the design. Keep a steady supply of people to work for you, pay them so little they can’t afford to get away, but just enough that they can afford to slowly kill themselves before they get old enough to become a burden. Everything works out in the end. Unless, of course, you’re a mouse.”

Vincent lit a cigarette of his own—to stall, Veld knew; he’d started picking up on all the various tricks Vincent used to keep himself out of conversations—and said nothing for a while.

“I can’t pretend I know anything about the world you’re from, Veld,” he began quietly after a while, “but I _do_ know you, and I know you wouldn’t have gotten stuck there, no matter what. You’re too damned stubborn. You’d chew off your own leg before you let anyone trap you.” Veld shook his head.

“You didn’t know me back then,” he muttered. “I wasn’t the same person. I never tried to make waves, never tried to rock the boat.”

“But it came naturally to you,” Vincent said with a smirk, “trying or not.” That earned a bit of a snort and a crooked smile from Veld.

“Yeah, guess it did,” he admitted ruefully. “Still. I was dumb—”

“You are _not_ , nor have you ever been, dumb,” Vincent cut in firmly, and Veld sighed.

“Okay, I was _naïve_ ,” he relented. “And idealistic, somehow, despite everything. The old man called it weak. Ma made fun of me for it all the time. ‘ _Life is suffering, Verdot, better get used to it,’_ that kind of bullshit. I thought I could make things better, but I was too much of a gods-damned coward to ever try, and I only would have failed if I had. I wasn’t brave enough to stand up to my _parents_ , much less the system.” He sighed. “Honestly, most of the time I just wanted to be invisible, but I couldn’t even do that right.”

“A lot of very great things have been accomplished by very naïve, very idealistic people, you know,” Vincent said with a gentle smile. Veld gave a noncommittal grunt and flicked his cigarette butt to the floor of the ruined church. “Who’s Verdot?” Vincent continued after a moment, and he felt Veld go rigid at that.

“What?” he said, as if he hadn’t quite heard correctly.

“ _’Life is suffering, Verdot,’_ ” Vincent echoed, and Veld gave a little wince, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Shit. Right.” He lit another cigarette, realizing dimly that Vincent’s stalling habits were rubbing off on him. “I changed my name when I joined the syndicate,” he explained finally.

He could leave it there, he knew, and Vincent wouldn’t press him—he was considerate like that—but they’d talked about far more painful subjects already, just not ones he was so unsure of how to explain.

“Verdot died the day my parents threw me out on the street,” he began at last. “Because he was a foolish, idealistic, sensitive little kid, and I just… _wasn’t_ anymore. Overnight. The time before that seems…surreal, sometimes, like I’m watching someone else’s memories. I can’t _relate_ to that person anymore, and maybe that’s just what growing up is, but…” he trailed off helplessly, not sure how to go on.

“But you shouldn’t have had to do it so fast,” Vincent finished for him in a whisper. Veld closed his eyes. 

“Yeah.”

“Being idealistic…it’s not a weakness, you know—”

“Vincent Valentine,” Veld cut in disbelievingly, “you are the most pessimistic man I have ever met.” Vincent just smiled and continued.

“—and being sensitive isn’t either,” he finished. A brief pause, and he kept going, sounding too damned mature for his eighteen years when he spoke. “People used to call me that too, when I was a boy. Sensitive. From my father… from my father it was an excuse, but from everyone else it was an insult. I know that. I knew that. I also know that it doesn’t really go away; we just learn how to hide it.” Vincent chuckled, the sound short and bitter. “I know everyone thinks that I’ve mastered my emotions, that I don’t feel them anymore. Truthfully, I’ve just mastered not letting them show, not acting on them. But I still feel, Veld. Everything. All the time.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t,” Veld shot back, a bit more sharply than he’d intended. Vincent just gave him a look, a gentle, understanding one that made Veld want to strangle the man.

“Anger is an emotion too, Veld,” Vincent reminded him quietly. Veld stood at that, turning his back on his partner. “And you’re always angry.”

Veld flinched a little when Vincent stepped up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder, draping his arm loosely across his back—Veld hadn’t heard him rise—but he relaxed quickly, not wanting Vincent to draw away, even though he was irritated. Even though Vincent’s soothing calm and sagely way of doling out wisdom wore on his patience, mostly because he knew the younger man was right.

“Maybe you haven’t changed as much as you think, Verdot,” Vincent murmured near his ear, closer even than he’d realized, and his arm settled around Veld a bit more firmly. Veld forgot to be irritated then.

This was…new. They were partners. They touched sometimes—playful shoves and claps on the shoulder and pats of consolation, the occasional rough, drunken side-hug—but this was different. Softer. Deeper. Too damned easy to read too much into.

Veld closed his eyes and drew in a quiet, shaky breath, sure that Vincent was entirely unaware of what he was doing to him. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that he was so touched-starved, the same way it wasn’t his fault that he was so damned pretty. He drew away from the younger Turk—just a little, just far enough that he could no longer feel the heat of Vincent’s breath against his ear—before he could make a fool of himself.

“I don’t think there’s anyone left alive who knows me by that name,” Veld realized absently as he tried to collect himself. He frowned a little at that, eyebrows drawing together.

“Does that make you sad?” Vincent prompted.

“Maybe a little. It’s strange, kind of, knowing that there’s not anyone out there holding onto that piece of me. And it _isn’t_ me anymore, but still…” he trailed off again.

“I felt that way about my mother dying,” Vincent murmured when he was sure Veld wouldn’t continue. “She was the last person who _only_ knew me when I was whole, and she took that last unblemished piece of me to the grave with her. No one will ever look at me again the way that she did. They can’t; they aren’t looking at the same person.”

“Maybe you haven’t changed as much as you think you have, either, Valentine.”

Veld finally turned to look at him, a sad smile crossing his face. The dying light gleamed golden through the broken stained glass windows, painting Vincent’s pale skin in colored light. Something clenched in Veld’s stomach, catching him by surprise. _Is this what people call butterflies?_ he wondered. It didn’t feel like fucking butterflies. It felt like someone had kicked him in the gut.

 _Oh, fuck,_ Veld thought to himself with dawning dread, whatever abominable creature that had previously busied itself with assaulting his stomach clawing upwards and wedging itself in his throat.

“Will you play something else for me?” he managed finally, hoping Vincent would comply, not because his music was beautiful—though it was—but because as much as he was enjoying the weight of Vincent’s arm across his shoulders, this man was on the verge of shattering his sanity. He couldn’t help but let out a shaky sigh of relief when Vincent stepped away and settled down on the piano bench.

Vincent just sat there a moment, eyes closed, breaths coming even and measured. He glanced up at Veld before he finally started playing, and the older man thought he almost saw… _disappointment_? lingering somewhere in those unreadable eyes before they closed again.

Veld moved to the nearest pew and sat down heavily on the weathered wood, reaching for another cigarette before realizing the pack was empty. He shoved his hands into his pockets instead, trying to keep them from shaking, and damn it maybe Vincent had been right—maybe he _did_ still feel too fucking much—because he couldn’t calm the tempest raging inside him now. He could have laughed at himself for believing _that_ delusion for so long—the one where he was in control, because if he were, he wouldn’t be here, would he, in this mess?

Veld closed his eyes and cursed himself.

“I think I love you, Vin,” he admitted to himself after a moment in a rough whisper, too quietly for the confession to even reach his own ears over the music. He wanted to repeat it, when the music finally ended and Vincent settled down beside him on the pew, movements unusually awkward, a hesitation that wasn’t like him marring his usual grace, but he just bit his tongue and curled his hands into fists in his pockets.

“It’s getting late,” Veld observed instead, unnecessarily. The church was growing eerie in the gloom, shadows lengthening in the fading light. “I think we successfully blew off the office.”

“…Drinks?” Vincent asked cautiously after a long silence. Veld closed his eyes and gave a long sigh.

“Not tonight, Vincent,” he replied at last, regretfully. “I…” He stopped there, because what excuse could he even make? He had nothing else to do and both of them knew it, but it would be reckless to go get drunk with him now, when he was so mired down in his feelings. He had already slipped up once today. He would say something—something he couldn’t take back—and then where would they be? “I’m sorry,” he finished at last.

“It’s alright, Verdot,” Vincent replied tiredly. He shook his head a little then, at himself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t call you that,” he apologized. “I know you didn’t mean to tell me.”

“No,” Veld surprised himself by saying. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. Really.”

They made their way back to the train station that would take them back above the Plate in silence, both lost somewhere in their own thoughts. The platform was surprisingly empty for the hour, and Veld settled down on an unoccupied bench as they waited for the next train, closing his eyes and sighing once again. It was only when he reopened them that he realized Vincent hadn’t joined him on the bench, and he glanced around for the other man. He found him leaning back against the wall of the platform, cherry of his cigarette glowing in the gloom, and after a moment of indecision, he stood to join him.

“Can I bum one of those?” Veld asked. “I’m out.”

For a beat, Vincent regarded him through the dark fringe of his hair, some emotion Veld couldn’t identify lingering in his gaze.

“You smoke too much, Veld,” Vincent admonished quietly after a moment, but he drew out another cigarette and passed it to Veld anyway before promptly turning his gaze back to the tracks in front of them.

“…Did I do something wrong?” Vincent asked after a long silence, so quietly Veld hardly heard him over the sound of the approaching train, and _gods_ he sounded young in that moment, the closest to insecure Veld had ever seen him.

“ _No_ ,” Veld responded immediately, unable to keep the indignation from his voice at the ridiculousness of the question.

“Then why does it feel like you’re trying to get rid of me?” Vincent still didn’t look at him when he spoke. “If I overstepped…”

“If I had a problem with you, you’d know it, okay?” Veld said seriously. “Today’s just been… alot. Doubt I’d be good company drunk right now. That’s all.”

Vincent looked at him finally, but didn’t straighten, and for once Veld found himself looking down at the younger man, and that mask he always wore was gone. Without it in place, he looked sad and a bit anxious and like he was _fucking eighteen_ —a kid in a suit with too much blood on his hands. He looked _vulnerable_.

“Vince,” Veld murmured quietly, and he had to bite back the urge to reach out for him like it was something physical. The younger Turk gave a shaky breath and closed his eyes, and they were both frozen for a moment.

The train screeched to a halt. A beat passed, then two, then Vincent pushed himself off the wall and straightened, briefly bringing himself almost chest-to-chest with Veld, who only then realized just how close he’d drifted towards him. Gods, it was like gravity, whatever the hell this _thing_ he could feel between them now was—there even when he forgot about it, inescapable, always dragging him closer, and he had no idea how to break out of his orbit.

“We’re going to miss the train,” Vincent observed quietly before stepping around him, leaving Veld behind in his wake as the older man watched him go and tried to shake himself back to reality.

The train was nearly unoccupied too, at least the car that Vincent and Veld had ended up in, so they both found seats easily and settled in for the ride in silence. Working with Vincent, Veld had grown accustomed to long silences, and there were times he found them almost enjoyable now—a comforting, companionable thing.

This was not one of those times. This silence made Veld want to scream, and he wasn’t sure how to break it because he had no idea what had caused it in the first place. He’d resigned himself to it by the time they got to their stop, ready to bid the man goodbye and part ways when they stepped out onto the platform, but…

"Can I take you to dinner?” Veld found himself saying

“…What?” Vincent replied after a beat, eyes darting up to search Veld’s face for a moment, though the older man wasn’t quite sure what he expected to find there.

“You asked about drinks earlier,” Veld explained, “and I’m not really in the mood, but… dinner could be nice. I mean, we have to eat.”

Vincent gave him a little smile, and it was sad, but there was warmth in those mahogany eyes when Veld met them.

“It’s a date, then,” he replied, and Veld was pretty sure that was supposed to be a taunt, but it just came out tired and toneless.

:”Guess it is.”


	8. For Auld Lang Syne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veld drags Vincent to the company's New Year party and discovers he can't hold his liquor quite as well as he thinks.

Sipping on his amaretto at one of the bars in the dim, crowded ballroom of the Shinra Building, Vincent tried to shut out the noise of the company party raging around him and wondered, not the first time, why he had let Veld talk him into this.

‘Two parties a year, Valentine,’ his partner had pled insistently over drinks after work. ‘That’s all I ask of you; just two parties a year.’

If they had both been Turk parties, Vincent would have refused. Veld had barely managed to drag him to the last Midwinter party the Turks put on; Vincent still hadn’t forgiven them for drugging the punch the year before. That had been his first _real_ Turk bash, put on only a few months after his admittance to the program was made official, and while Veld had assured him that they weren’t usually _that_ bad, Vincent had been hesitant to believe him.

Shinra’s New Year’s Party, however, was a company-wide event, and a certain level of decorum was expected. That wasn’t to say that plenty of people didn’t make fools of themselves—because they did—but that wasn’t actually the _point_ of the evening. What the point _was_ , Vincent wasn’t entirely sure, but then, he’d never really understood parties. There was an open bar at least, one that he and Veld were certainly taking advantage of.

“You might want to slow down, Verdot,” Vincent warned his partner as the pulsating beat of the music faded out and someone began to speak on the mic. “It’s only nine o’clock, you know.”

“Which means I only have another four hours or so to drink as much free whiskey as I can,” Veld said in sarcastic despair. “Slow down? I think I need to speed up. Not often I get to do this on someone else’s dime.”

“If you want to end up on a page in the breakroom calendar, keep at it,” Vincent said, exasperated, shaking his head a little. Every year, the Turks took it upon themselves to collect the best (and by "best," they meant most humiliating) photos of the previous year’s exploits to be blown up to size, made into a calendar, and posted on the breakroom wall for the enjoyment and humiliation of all. The first month’s photo was almost always from Shinra’s New Year ball. “Remember last year when Ace passed out and—“

“Good thing then, that unlike Ace, I can actually hold my liquor,” Veld snorted dismissively, finishing off his whiskey. “That pretty blond at the end of the bar’s been staring at you all night, by the way.”

Vincent followed the tilt of Veld’s head and made brief eye contact with a blond woman in a shimmering golden gown he assumed was the “pretty blond” Veld was referring to. She cast him a shy smile, and he tried to pass the contact off as accidental, quickly letting his gaze slip away.

Vincent found his eyes locked on a different pretty blond then—a blue-eyed bartender who hadn’t taken any drink orders on their side of the bar yet that night. It was the first time Vincent had noticed the young man, who finally seemed to feel his gaze. The bartender glanced up to meet Vincent’s eyes, and Vincent cast him a smoldering smile. The blond man gave him a small grin in return, blushing a little.

“You hear me?”

“Hmm?” Vincent asked, realizing for the first time that Veld was talking. The music had started up again, and he had to concentrate to understand the words.

“I asked if you were going to go talk to her,” Veld repeated, but Vincent just shook his head .

“Why would I do that?” he asked. Veld buried his face in his palm

“Gaia,” Veld muttered.

“What?” Vincent demanded. “How many times have we gone out drinking together? I’ve never seen _you_ make a move on anyone either.”

“Girls don’t fucking _moon_ over me the way they do you, Valentine.”

“You act like no one’s ever flirted with you before,” Vincent observed critically, arching an eyebrow. Veld was an attractive man by almost anyone’s standards, muscular and tanned, rough around the edges in a way that only made him more appealing. Vincent had never been quite sure exactly _how_ Veld managed to look rough around the edges while impeccably dressed in a suit and tie. It was something in his face, his constant cursing, in the way he carried himself, Vincent supposed, the careless, untamed fall of his hair and the five-o-clock shadow that dusted the sharp line of his jaw.

Veld shrugged a shoulder at the statement, eyes straying from Vincent’s. “I have a type, okay?”

“Maybe I do too,” Vincent pointed out. The blond bartender glanced back over his way, and with another little smile, Vincent drained his amaretto and set the empty glass in front of him pointedly. The young man made his way over immediately, not even giving the bartender assigned to their side time to notice his glass was empty. He propped his elbows on the counter across from Vincent, leaning in close to speak to him over the music.

“What are you drinking, love?” he purred at Vincent, staring up at him coyly with brilliant sapphire eyes.

“Surprise me,” Vincent replied.

“What are you in the mood for?” the bartender asked in the same tone.

“Mmm,” Vincent hummed, eyes roving over the young man slowly. “Something sweet, I think.”

He returned with Vincent’s drink a moment later, sliding it across the counter to him and letting his fingers graze the Turk’s, lingering just a moment too long. “I’d say it’s on the house, but everything is tonight,” he said with a wink. “I’m Bryn, by the way. Just let me know if there’s _anything_ else I can do for you tonight.” 

With another sultry smile, Bryn sauntered back to his side of the bar. Veld had caught exactly enough of the exchange over the music to be confused. 

“I think that guy might have been hitting on you,” he observed to Vincent in mild surprise. Vincent choked back a laugh, but it never showed on his face. 

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

“I still can’t fucking tell sometimes if you’re being sarcastic or not,” Veld sighed. He cast a curious glance at the pink liquid in Vincent’s sugar-rimmed glass then. “What the fuck are you drinking?”

Vincent gave an elegant shrug. “Not sure,” he answered casually.

“What do you—you know, never mind,” Veld chuckled, shaking his head vaguely. He still didn’t understand his partner sometimes. “Do you have plans after we leave here?”

Vincent just quirked an eyebrow. It was enough of an answer. “Do you think that _you_ have plans after we leave here?” Vincent asked disbelievingly. “You’re what, five whiskeys in? The metro still closes at one, you know. How do you plan on getting home?”

“You sound like someone’s fucking mom,” Veld scoffed. “Not, you know, _my_ mom, but one that actually gave enough of a shit enough to nag.”

“You’re right,” Vincent admitted, though Veld caught the combative edge to his partner’s tone. “I _do_ give a shit, and I really wish you would just go home.”

“If you were really worried, you’d tag along and be my chaperone,” Veld teased, nudging him in the ribs.

“That’s manipulative and you know it,” Vincent pointed out, and Veld sighed.

“I hate it when you’re right,” Veld admitted. Before Vincent could ask what exactly Veld was admitting he was right about—just his last statement or all of it—the older Turk stood. “I’m going to go grab some food. You want anything?”

With a sigh, Vincent shook his head. A moment after Veld left, Bryn made his way back over, giving Vincent another smile.

“He’s not your boyfriend, is he?” the blonde asked, nodding after Veld. Vincent laughed a little.

“Veld? No.”

“Good. In that case, I’m about to go on break, and I _happen_ to have the only key to one of the liquor storerooms nearby…” Bryn informed him, tone rife with implication. Vincent’s expression didn’t change, but the glint that entered his mahogany eyes sent a little shiver down the bartender’s spine as the Turk finished his drink in one long gulp.

“How do I get there?” Vincent asked simply, the barest hint of a smile twisting his lips now.

“Through that door,” Bryn instructed, inclining his head towards the nearest exit. “Take a left, go to the end of the hall, take another left. It’s the last door on the hallway on the right. Do you need me to—”

“I’ve got it,” Vincent assured. He quickly downed the remainder of Veld’s unattended whiskey as he allowed Bryn to get a head start from the room.

Veld returned with his plate of food to an empty whiskey glass and an empty seat where Vincent should have been. Strange. It wasn’t like the younger Turk to mingle. Maybe he’d had to go to the toilet or something, Veld reasoned. Had it really been so much of an emergency that the little fucker couldn’t have at least stuck around a few more minutes to watch his drink? He sighed and settled back down in his barstool, trying to flag down the bartender, who looked noticeably less amicable than she had a moment ago.

“Another whiskey?” she asked tersely when he finally got her attention.

“Everything okay?” he asked sincerely after nodding. “Someone’s not bothering you, are they?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m okay, thanks. The other bartender just went on break and I’m getting a little backed up. He should be back any minute, though.”

“Any minute” apparently meant about half an hour, or at least that’s how long it took before the blonde bartender reappeared, offering the girl a few passionate apologies and promising to make it up to her. ‘You know how these things go, Liv,’ he’d insisted. Liv did in fact seem to know how these things went, because she accepted both the apology and the blonde’s promise to return the favor with grudging sincerity.

Veld was only listening in to distract himself from the fact that Vincent was still missing, something that was admittedly making him start to grow anxious at this point. Had the younger Turk left without saying anything? Had he _actually_ been angry about earlier? Veld hadn’t thought he was, but maybe he wasn’t as good at reading Vincent as he believed.

Before he could get worried enough to go looking, though, Vincent reappeared. Liv grabbed him an amaretto and gave him a conspiratorial smile Veld didn’t quite understand. Vincent’s raven hair had gone a bit wavy the way that it did after it had gotten damp.

“Where did you disappear to?” Veld demanded.

“I just went outside to smoke,” Vincent replied casually, taking a sip of his drink. “Needed to get away from the noise for a while.” Veld seemed to accept the answer. It wasn’t out of character, after all.

“Is it raining outside or something?” Veld wondered innocently, and Vincent cast him a confused glance. “Your hair looks like it got wet.”

“Oh. It…sprinkled for a second,” Vincent lied. “It looks mostly clear now, though.”

“Good. If the fireworks get rained out, I’m going to be pissed,” Veld announced.

“You care about stuff like that?” Vincent asked with mild surprise.

“Why wouldn’t I? You don’t?”

“Not really,” admitted Vincent. “It just seems…sort of childish.”

Veld snorted. “You’ll grow back into it,” he informed the younger man. “Getting older is basically just re-learning how to enjoy shit you like without feeling being embarrassed about it, _even_ if it’s childish. Which fireworks are _not_ , I would like to add, thank you very much.”

Vincent gave a little shrug. “We stopped doing them after my mother died. The New Year was always one of her favorite holidays; her parents were Wutian, you know. She kept up the traditions. I don’t know if father stopped because it hurt too much or if he just felt like he couldn’t do justice to her memory. I suppose without her, they’ve always just seemed like a letdown.”

The levity left Veld’s face, and Vincent immediately regretted the words. Why did he always seem to say the wrong things, to open his mouth at the worst possible times? the young man wondered to himself.

“…We should go up to the roof,” Veld suggested after a beat of silence, never really capable of staying somber for long. “Bet the view from there’s incredible.” Vincent lit a cigarette instead of replying, and Veld gave a quiet sigh. “Look, just…indulge me? Would you really rather stay down here with all the noise instead? It’s just going to get worse when the ball drops.”

“No,” Vincent admitted, trying to steel himself. “But one more drink, alright?”

“Well, I’m not going to fight you on that,” Veld chuckled, waving over the bartender. “Just make it quick.”

“Do I even want to know how many that is?” Vincent wondered aloud as he watched Veld tip back another whiskey like he didn’t even feel the burn. He probably didn’t, at this point. Their bartender probably would have cut him off if she’d realized how drunk he actually was, but Veld had always been too good at hiding it, still barely even slurring when he spoke. Vincent could see it in his motions, though, his body language changing as the drink loosened him. He smiled more, blush ruddy on his cheeks, talked with his hands too much. He leaned into contact too long too, lingering over any brush of fingers or steadying arm.

“Lucky thirteen,” Veld admitted. Vincent gave his head a minute shake, breathing an exasperated curse.

“You know the only way up to the roof is a flight of stairs, right? Narrow ones.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Veld insisted, standing up as if to prove it.

He was a bit wobbly rising to his feet, but once he was on them Veld felt steady enough, even if his equilibrium was skewed and he couldn’t quite feel his face anymore. Vincent still kept a critical eye on him as they exited the ballroom and made their way towards the nearest flight of stairs, steering Veld around potential collisions occasionally when the older man’s attention strayed. Veld didn’t protest his support when Vincent put a steadying arm around him on the staircase, and even drunk, the older man noticed Vincent tense as they emerged into the medical wing.

“You okay?” Veld asked in concern, and Vincent relaxed immediately, banishing the tension in his shoulders as soon as he was aware it existed. It was such a short flicker of fear that no one else would have caught it, but Veld always did, somehow.

“Fine,” Vincent replied shortly.

“I can tell when something’s bothering you,” Veld declared. “What is it?”

 _A trauma disorder, probably,_ Vincent thought to himself bitterly.

“…I’m just not fond of the medical wing, alright?” Vincent groused at last with finality.

Veld didn’t need to press him further, though. He understood. The first time he’d met Vincent, the kid’s arms had been riddled with purple bruises left behind by injections and IV lines, fading relics of the time he’d spent here. No one who had spent any length of time in Shinra’s medical wing was very fond of it, especially if their stay had been involuntary the way Vincent’s was. For the first time, Veld realized that his partner had always gone out of his way to avoid this area of the building at all costs. The kid had more scars than he probably should have, a result of insisting that Veld patch him up whenever possible instead of actually going to a healer. The only times Vincent had ever ended up in the medical wing when injured, he was either unconscious or entirely too close to dying for comfort. Likewise, Vincent usually refused to accompany the older Turk unless Veld was seriously hurt himself though Vincent never left his side during work otherwise, and the younger man was in a terrible mood every time he did come along. Veld had always just assumed his partner didn’t like to see him hurt, but realized now that it was more than that. 

“You should have told me,” Veld admonished gently. “We could have gone the other way.”

“The long way, you mean,” Vincent countered, disentangling himself from Veld and moving forward. “Not if you want to see the fireworks.”

“Hey,” Veld murmured, grabbing clumsily at Vincent’s wrist and pulling him to a halt as he tried to keep walking. Vincent paused again, and Veld waited until the man’s mahogany eyes flickered to his own. “You should have told me,” he repeated seriously. “You don’t need to keep secrets from me, Vince.” Veld took his other hand then, spinning Vincent gently to face him. “About anything.”

Vincent closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. Veld got touchy when he was drunk, the younger Turk knew. It wasn’t anything new, and it didn’t mean anything, Vincent was sure. At least, he’d been sure at one point, but lately… lately he’d caught Veld’s gaze lingering on him just a bit too long when he thought Vincent wasn’t paying attention, finding excuses to touch him more often than he used to.

 _Or,_ Vincent admitted to himself _, maybe he’s acting exactly the same, and you only feel like something has changed because_ you’re _paying too much attention to_ him _lately._ Veld was…decidedly not his type, but still… Vincent couldn’t deny that the other Turk had grown on him, that he hadn’t found his thoughts wandering to useless, scandalous hypotheticals that would never come to pass more than once. It wasn’t like the younger Turk had ever gone out of his way to keep his preferences a secret, after all, even if he didn’t necessarily announce them to the world either. But Veld _had_ to have realized by now, right? Wouldn’t he have already acted if he had any interest in him at all?

“We’re going to miss the fireworks,” Vincent observed.

“Shit,” Veld muttered, shaking himself. “You’re right…sure you’re okay?”

“Of course.”

Veld released him just a little bit too quickly, as if he were afraid any further contact might scald him.

“Well, hurry it up then,” the older Turk bade after a beat, starting down the long hallway where the stairs to the roof could be accessed.

By the time he and Vincent settled down on the edge of the rooftop of the Shinra Building, gazing out over Midgar, they had only moments to spare before midnight.

“Do you make resolutions?” Veld wondered absently as he gazed out into the dark with anticipation.

“No,” replied Vincent. “Do you?”

“Not usually,” Veld shrugged. “I’ve never really been big on self-improvement, obviously.” Air came out of Vincent’s nose just a bit harder at that. “This year, though…I dunno. To be more honest, maybe?” He cast Vincent a sad smile. There was really only one thing he wanted to be honest about, Veld realized. Maybe he should just do it here, while he was mostly drunk enough not to care about what it might mean for them tomorrow.

Vincent _did_ chuckle at that.

“We’re professional liars, Veld,” he observed.

“While I’m off the clock, then,” Veld conceded. “…Vincent…”

Veld jumped at the first explosion, startled gaze whirling towards the sound in time to catch a glimpse of the first firework. Vincent’s gaze followed his, and the both of them fell silent, watching the show. Veld had been right about the spot; Vincent had never seen the fireworks over Midgar look quite as beautiful as they did that night, bright even against the mako-glow of the reactors and the light pollution, almost as brilliant as the dancing lights he remembered from his past, from a different lifetime.

Vincent also realized for the first time that Veld didn’t like loud noises. They could both read each other too well, the younger Turk mused. Veld hid it well, but he tensed just a little every time a firework popped in the sky. Dimly, Vincent wondered what had happened to make him that way, and he put his hand over Veld’s without thinking, trying to offer some sort of comfort. Veld’s fingers curled around his own instinctively. Veld’s hands were warm despite the winter chill, calloused but not rough, the skin of his fingertips and his palm where he gripped his gun smooth and unyielding.

“When did you take off your gloves?” the older Turk wondered aloud, tracing his thumb absently across the back of Vincent’s hand. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever touched Vincent’s hands when his partner wasn’t wearing his gloves, Veld realized after a moment. The skin there was soft and unblemished, and for some reason it made Veld wonder what the rest of him would look like bared. 

Vincent had taken off his gloves in the storeroom with Bryn, and they were currently tucked into the inner pocket of his blazer next to the napkin the blonde man had scrawled his number on before leaving. He didn’t bother replying to Veld’s question, enjoying the brush of the older man’s skin against his own. Vincent didn’t withdraw when Veld laced his fingers through his own, though there was really nothing else to call this except for holding hands now.

“…It’s a good resolution,” Vincent acknowledged at last, eyes still turned skyward. “Perhaps I’ll try it too..”

“Is that so?” Veld questioned, glancing over at his partner as another round of fireworks exploded. For a long moment, Veld couldn’t look away. He blamed the alcohol.

“…I don’t like it when you go out alone,” Vincent tried. “I worry.”

“I get it,” Veld acknowledged, watching colored lights splash across Vincent’s pale skin appreciatively. He was sure that Vincent wanted assurances, but he couldn’t give them. He had needs, after all, needs he wasn’t comfortable with the company knowing about, needs he was anxious about his partner knowing about. As much as a very large part of him wanted to drag Vincent to his favorite gay bar in Wall Market and leave everything out in the open, Veld was afraid to. There were certain things that couldn’t be taken back, he knew. “But…” But Veld was twenty-five and tired of being alone. The only thing he was perhaps more tired of, in fact, were one-night stands.

“But?” Vincent prompted.

“…But you don’t need to be worried about me,” Veld said at last, though he was no longer sure the statement was entirely true. He could ensure his own physical safety with relative certainty—he was a Turk, after all—but emotionally… Well, the men he’d slept with lately reminded Veld entirely too gods-damned much of Vincent, and he was achingly aware that this was becoming a problem, one he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with.

“I’m always going to worry about you,” Vincent confessed at last. “I care about you, and I know you can take care of yourself, but…”

“But?” it was Veld’s turn to press.

“But you’re really drunk, Veld,” Vincent murmured at last.

“Shh,” Veld bade gently, leaning against Vincent’s shoulder absently. “You’re missing the show.”

The two of them stayed on the roof for a while after the fireworks had finished, not really saying much as they gazed out over the city. The streets below them were a swarm of color and people and noise, and neither of them was in any rush to join them. Vincent slipped a metal flask of brandy out of his jacket pocket, took a sip, offered it up to Veld, who absolutely didn’t need any more alcohol, but drank it anyway.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk enough that I can’t go anywhere,” Veld observed with a wry smile as he took a little sip of the brandy.

“I wasn’t, actually,” Vincent said with a shrug, “but now that you’ve given me the idea…” Veld chuckled and reached into his pocket for the cigar he’d tucked there before he left home, lit it, took a few deep, long draws and let the buzz of the nicotine clear his head a little.

“I’ll head home, okay?” Veld said grudgingly at last. “The bars are going to be wild tonight, anyway. I’m not sure if I’m in the mood.” Vincent gave a quiet sigh of relief at that. Veld passed him the cigar. “If we hurry back down we might be able to grab another drink before the bar closes.”

“Veld,” Vincent said seriously. “You’ve had thirteen whiskeys. You are not capable of _hurrying_ anywhere at the moment. In fact, I’ll be frankly astonished if you manage to make it back down the stairs without breaking your neck.” 

“That’s what I’ve got you for, right?” Veld chuckled. Vincent’s expression didn’t change. “Oh, come on,” Veld groused, though his face broke out into a wild grin. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s holding my liquor. I’m _fine_.” Before Vincent had a chance to protest or move to stop him, Veld rose to his feet, balancing on the narrow building ledge with nothing at all to separate him from the dark and the fall. “See?” 

“Get. Down,” Vincent said sternly, his voice going cold with fury. Veld laughed and spread his hands a little, a gesture of insincere supplication or an attempt to balance, Vincent wasn’t sure _. “Get down,”_ Vincent repeated, and this time, Veld caught the hint of fear edging his partner’s tone. “Now.”

The smile fell from the older Turk’s face. “Okay, okay,” he relented, letting Vincent grip his wrist and help him down from the ledge. Dimly, Veld realized Vincent’s hands were shaking, and a sudden stab of guilt went through him. “I was just kidding around,” he muttered under his breath.

He was still drunk enough that he barely even felt Vincent hit him, a sharp, open-palmed blow to his cheek almost too hard to call a slap. Vincent turned and began to make his way back inside without another word.

“Vincent!” Veld called after him, pleading. “Wait up!” Vincent froze but didn’t turn to look at him. Veld strongly suspected that the only reason his partner stopped at all was the knowledge that Veld probably wouldn’t make it back down the stairs by himself. Veld placed a hand on Vincent’s shoulder when he reached him, sighing. “Look, I’m sorry. That… was pretty stupid, wasn’t it?”

“Do you have a death wish you want to tell me about, Verdot?” Vincent’s voice was calm again, but Veld knew that meant absolutely nothing. The older man rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“No,” he admitted. “I’m just generally an inconsiderate asshole. I didn’t mean to worry you, I just…”

“Have absolutely no sense at all?” Vincent finished for him. “Are entirely too selfish to give a damn about how your actions might affect anyone other than you?” 

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Veld whispered sincerely. Vincent closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh.

“You’re an idiot,” he told Veld flatly, irritated, tone tinged just the tiniest bit with fondness.

“I know,” Veld admitted with a sigh.

By the time the two of them finally exited the Shinra Building, the streets had grown almost quiet. There were still crowds of revelers here and there, lingering near the city center, congregating around bars, but it was easy enough for the two Turks to avoid them. At long last, the entrance to the metro came into sight in the distance, and Veld gave a little sigh of relief. A premature one, it turned out. The two Turks watched the grate slowly lower, blocking off the stairs going down. They had missed the last train; It appeared they would be walking home.

“Shit,” Veld cursed, stopping on the sidewalk where he was.

“…My apartment is closer,” Vincent observed.

“By like five blocks,” Veld protested.

“And yours is in the opposite direction. I am _not_ letting you walk home alone,” Vincent stated firmly. “I can sleep on the sofa.” 

In the end, Veld relented, staggering back to Vincent’s apartment as night shifted into early morning. He realized as his partner unlocked the door that he’d never been here before. Whenever they got together outside of work, they usually did so in Veld’s loft. Upon seeing Vincent’s apartment, the older Turk understood why. The space was minimal to the point of estheticism, a little shoebox of place that only managed not to feel cramped because Vincent barely owned any furniture. There was a sofa, a coffee table, and a single tall bookshelf overflowing with hardbacks, comfortably rubbing spines. 

“Drink this,” Vincent bade, passing a water bottle Veld’s way as he disappeared into the bathroom to fetch a spare blanket from the linen closet. When he returned to the living room, the older Turk was struggling with the buttons of his shirt, cursing under his breath as he fumbled clumsily over the clasps. He stumbled a little, very nearly winding up on top of Vincent’s coffee table, but the younger man moved forward to catch him automatically, lighting-quick in that way of his.

“Gaia,” Vincent sighed tiredly, trying his best to steady his partner. “Let me.”

“I’ve got it,” Veld insisted, though he managed to almost topple again as soon as he shook off Vincent’s gentle grasp. As he began to go over, he grabbed at the younger man in a panic, over-compensating as he tried to find his center of gravity, and managed to pull Vincent down onto the sofa with him. On _top_ of him, actually.

Before Vincent could make an attempt to stand up, Veld’s arms wrapped around his waist, and the older Turk’s lips pressed against his own, calloused fingers knotting in his ink-black hair to draw him closer. Vincent let out a startled noise, but made no attempt to draw away from the older man’s embrace, for the moment at least. Veld tasted like whiskey and tobacco, Vincent noted absently as the older man’s tongue pressed forward into his mouth, and his lips were firm and insistent.

“Fuck, why are you so pretty?” Veld slurred breathlessly as Vincent finally drew away. 

“Veld…” Vincent breathed, his eyes flickering closed. He drew in a few deep, unsteady breaths. “You’re drunk.” The statement was aimed more at himself than Veld now, though. It took every bit of Vincent’s willpower to make an attempt at disentangling himself from Veld’s arms. 

Veld let out a noise of frustration as he tried to tug Vincent back towards him, fingers fumbling at the top button of the younger man’s shirt. He made the noise again when Vincent grabbed his hands, gently restraining him.

“Tomorrow,” Vincent whispered. “If you still want this tomorrow…” Without word, he released Veld, fingers going back to the older man’s buttons as he undid the last few and finally helped slip the garment off his shoulders. It wasn’t like Vincent had never seen the other man shirtless before, but it felt undeniably different when he was still half on top of his partner, the burn of Veld’s whiskey lingering on his lips.

Vincent couldn’t help it; he leaned down to kiss him again. Veld hummed in contentment against his lips, but his eyes slipped closed, limbs suddenly feeling entirely too heavy to move now that he’d sat down. He hadn’t realized just how much his head was spinning when he had still been upright.

Vincent had every intention of giving Veld the bed when he’d invited him over, but it was pretty clear the man had no intention of moving anytime soon, so Vincent settled for draping the extra blanket over him and helping him situate himself onto the throw pillows, casting a few into the floor, resting his head on another, and clutching yet one more close to his chest like a teddy bear.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Vincent couldn’t help but wonder as Veld closed his eyes and spiraled towards slumber, head still spinning.

Veld woke with a pounding headache, a churning stomach, and the knowledge that he hadn’t been this hung over in a long, long time. Vincent was already rustling around in the kitchen, making himself a cup of coffee before opening the breadbox and rummaging in the refrigerator for the butter for the toast.

“I like mine with sugar and cinnamon,” Veld managed hoarsely at last, and Vincent glanced over at him, a small, fond smile tugging at his lips.

“Eggs?” the younger Turk inquired simply. 

“Over easy.” 

A few minutes later, Vincent passed the older man a plate of food and a cup of black coffee before settling down on the sofa next to his partner. For a while, they both enjoyed their breakfast in silence. 

“…I can’t shake the feeling that I made an ass of myself last night,” Veld admitted at last as he blew on his second cup of coffee to cool it. “But I’m not quite sure how.” 

“It’s a fair assumption, knowing you,” Vincent replied with utmost sincerity.

“ _Vincent_ ,” Veld whined, and the younger man gave a quiet chuckle, barely audible.

“I suppose you’ll just have to wait for next year’s calendar,” the younger Turk observed, a wry smile twisting his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy very belated New Year and slightly-less-belated Lunar New Year. Fuck hoping; I am ardently demanding that this one be better than the last.


End file.
